


Home

by sunshine_locks



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, also sprinkled with some depression and anxiety and emotional abuse, hahahaha yeah - Freeform, just ur average christmas fake dating fic, with a muggle and university au thrown in there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 18:22:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20158018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshine_locks/pseuds/sunshine_locks
Summary: Just why exactly are you dating my daughter?Because she feels like home.Or alternatively: Teddy goes to Victoire's house for Christmas and capers ensue.For down-in-flames' Faking It challenge.





	1. dragon's breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas, if Teddy was being honest, was entirely too cheerful. 
> 
> Warning: Mentions and thoughts of domestic abuse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys! i wrote this for shadowrose's faking it challenge, as you can see. i meant for it to be a lot more happier than this, not gonna lie. but then this wouldn't stop writing itself, and i was like, hey, why not just go with it? so here we are. i also wrote this with a few prompts in mind, which are as follows: 
> 
> \- i accidentally told you that i'm not going home for christmas and you invited me over except now your parents think we're dating
> 
> \- i said no to your offer of dating you because i'm trying to get out of a shitty home situation and you're kind of a distraction
> 
> \- you told me "you don't deserve that" and i had the sudden urge to kiss you
> 
> \- i told you that i don't deserve you and you looked at me like i was the whole world
> 
> so, yup. some prompts i follow to a t, but others, not so much. it just depends on where my muse takes me. i expect this'll be about three chapters, but who knows? this was originally supposed to be an 8k one-shot, and look where we are. 
> 
> if you made it this far, thank you, but i also have a few odd questions, if you don't mind answering. what house would you sort this teddy in? and for those who have read glass, what do you think are the similarities and differences are between glass!teddy and home!teddy?

Christmas, if Teddy was being honest, was entirely too cheerful. Yes, he understood that for most people it was a religious holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus and all, but he could do without the lights and the music and the jolly good atmosphere. It never really matched with his own feelings on the happy holiday, and he was pretty sure he was the only one who felt this way.

There was also the fact that the Christmas season often made his favorite café filled to the brim when it usually was sparse of any people, and he had to abandon it in favor of the student common room, which was always less than negative three degrees on any given day, even if it was in the dead of winter.

Maybe he just hated Christmas.

Slumping down in the chair seated in the secluded corner of Espresso Patronum, he glumly wondered whether this was what he’d be subjected to every Christmas season.

Grimacing, Teddy thought he’d rather die.

It was just that… his Auntie was just incredibly angering, and he really didn’t know what to do about all the pent up frustration inside of him.

Staring at the blank black screen of his phone, he, not for the first time, wished that this wasn’t his life.

He wished many a time that he didn’t have to deal with his Auntie, who was much too insistent on him coming home for Christmas even when he had come home to see her multiple times previously per her request.

Teddy thought frankly if he didn’t come home for a holiday that they didn’t celebrate for just one time, it didn’t matter. He’d spent many miserable Christmases with his tiny family of three, and he has had enough of them. Missing one holiday wouldn’t make a difference.

This time around, his Auntie had guilt-tripped—though not in her usual obvious way—trying to convince him that he was a horrible nephew for not visiting, and that he was abandoning his sister. She was trying to take the high-road, but what was the difference if both the high-road and low-road were down in hell?

For fuck’s sake. Hope could take care of herself.

Teddy didn’t understand the 'abandoning her' part either; he’d been taking care of her for the majority of his life—his sister could afford his absence for a few days, if he did his job right. And he did, even if he fucked up a few times. There was no doubt about that, at all.

He just wanted a few weeks of being by himself, or maybe just hanging out with his friends. That was all he wanted. Christmases at home were decidedly _not_ that, because his Auntie preferred him in the home, where she could see him.

He’d just about reached the end of his rope with his Auntie, and one of these days he was going to do something incredibly stupid if he didn’t calm down and stop himself.

Hope had made the situation worse, taking the time to personally call to tell him that he was being unreasonable, that Auntie gave him much freedom at home too, and the fact that he was asking for time away came off as being ungrateful.

Teddy had scowled, replying, “I don’t know how you can defend her when you know exactly the sort of shit she pulls! Stop fucking making excuses for her and open your eyes; I owe fucking _nothing_ to her, and it’s about time you learned that too. It’s just one Christmas, she can deal with herself,” and then ended the call abruptly, seething too much to see reason.

In retrospect, that was probably a bad idea, and he’d certainly be paying for that, one way or another.

Teddy slid down his chair, involuntarily releasing a sigh. He swept over the interior of the café, noting distastefully that the holiday rush was increasing. At this time, the customers always did get a bit more cross and a bit higher strung, and sometimes (most of the time) spilled over to the actual occupants of the café. Once, he’d been hassled for not giving up his table. The table that he’d been sitting in for hours before hand. The other person genuinely thought that they were entitled to his seat.

He probably would have given his table up if it weren’t for the fact of their nasty attitude and entitlement. Just for that, Teddy stayed at the table the whole day out of pure pettiness, even though that he had a test to study for, the materials of which were stored neatly away in his flat.

Completely and absolutely worth it. It was alright anyways; he’d gotten a straight 84 on it.

Snapping out of his reverie, Teddy gathered his things and tightened the scarf around his neck, adjusted his jacket, and walked into the frigid cold, dragon’s breath forming at his lips and swirling into the air.

—

Teddy’s roommate was certainly something else, that was for sure.

When he’d first met Ellie Liu, he was immediately told that she was a people person, and that there’d certainly be a lot of people visiting their townhome.

He wasn’t an extrovert by any means, but he wasn’t awfully off-put about that; most of the time, he could get along with a lot of strangers, given that they were good at conversation and didn’t infringe on his own personal space.

Well, Victoire Delacour-Weasley didn’t break any of his rules, but sometimes she just made him feel like his body was eating him from the inside out with just the way she spoke about her family.

She’d told him that her sister loved to annoy her and pull pranks on her that often lead to one thing or another, and all he’d had to say about that was ‘_what the hell, I’d kill to have a relationship with my sister that regularly doesn’t include the other eroding my sense of self_’.

Yeah, so there was Teddy's saddening thought for the day.

Eventually though, he was able to find—not necessarily peace—a compromise that allowed him to have more patience with her, and told himself that she was only human.

Sometimes he did find it hard to empathize with others, yes, but he was working on that.

Victoire also made an appearance in his home many times a week, so he had to quickly get used to her presence anyways.

Today saw her coming to his home again, with the pretense of seeing Ellie.

So when she stayed even when Ellie wasn’t there, it confused him for a bit, but in the end was glad to have some company. Being home alone wasn't fun.

“Hello Victoire,” Teddy greeted as warmly as he could. He found it a bit hard to be polite when he was angry as fuck, but he could do with at least trying to be nice to one of the few people that bothered with him.

“Heya,” she greeted back cheerily, giving a cute wave. “Ellie here?”

Teddy shook his head, smiling sympathetically.

“Ah,” she said understandingly, but plopped herself on the couch anyways. “So, what’s up?”

He analyzed her for a second, and then shook his head slightly. “Not much,” he told her, and went into the kitchen. Popping his head out, he asked, “Want anything?”

“Would you have any of your Pocky?”

“Hey, now that’s mine,” Teddy chastised her, frowning.

“Please?” she asked sweetly with pout. God, it was like she spoke in pout all day, every day.

It was endearing occasionally, which happened to be the only reason why he was grabbing his last box from his family pack to give to her.

Yeah, that sounded about right.

He flung the last box to her, and then took a seat on the couch adjacent to the one she was on.

“So,” Teddy asked, “how are your classes?” He almost always began with this question because Victoire had a way with telling stories, and it was incredibly entertaining to listen to how she described her professors.

“Ugh,” Victoire groaned, flopping herself onto the couch. “God, it’s like my classes never stop with the bullshit. I can_not_ believe that I have to take two more classes of Physics to get my fucking Information Systems degree.”

Teddy gave her a mix between a grimace and a smile, and half-heartedly wondered why she decided to concentrate in what she did if she hated the classes so much. Maybe she wanted a good job, maybe she wanted stability, or maybe she wanted to torture herself. Who knew?

“But,” she conceded, “today was nice. We pretty much played board games. There’s this game, called Photosynthesis? Anyways, whoever created it must’ve been a really creative bloke, the art’s really pretty and so is the game.”

“Games?” Teddy raised his eyebrows.

“Er, yeah,” Victoire laughed. “Today’s the last of classes, and our final was a practical project. So.” She gasped just then. “Today’s the last day of classes! Time really flies, huh? Except I had no fun at all.”

“At least its Christmas break now,” he tried to offer in some semblance of comfort.

“That’s true.” She smiled softly, seemingly thinking of something far away. “I’m going home for the holidays, and well, I know my family’s immensely annoying, but even I can’t deny that I’ve missed them these past few months.”

A tremor of envy rose in his chest, but he quashed it immediately. He’d made his decision today, and that was that. There was no point in regretting it now.

“I’m happy for you,” he said, and truly meant it. “Are you looking forward to anything?”

“Well,” she said, pausing to think for a moment. “My maman doesn’t often make Korean food a lot, but whenever I come home she always makes my favorite.”

“Which would be?” he prompted.

“Tteokbokki.” Victoire brightened, and he thought that her smile could light up the world if she so wanted. “It’s really good, and maman used to make it for me a lot when I was younger to make me feel better.”

Teddy nodded understandingly.

“Sorry for talking about myself—”

“It’s all good.”

Victoire flapped her hands dismissively and continued as if there was no interruption. “—but do you have any plans for the break?”

Teddy froze for a moment, and panicked as to how he should answer. Hell, he didn’t even know if this was something he should be telling people if he wanted to stay on the down low. Goddamn it. “Well…” Oh, fuck it. Nothing mattered anyways. “I’m not going home for the holidays. It’s gonna be me, myself, and I. Possibly Ellie as well, but there’s no telling with her.”

“Just… you?” Victoire’s tone was expressly aghast, seemingly making no attempt to hide it.

Teddy shrugged.

“But why?”

He knew that she was truly curious about the answer, but he wanted to snap back that not everyone had the perfect fucking family that she did, with all of her siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

But he didn’t.

He had to hold back rolling his eyes; he was annoyed, but he did not want to hurt Victoire in any way, shape, or form.

“I,” Teddy began, but then let out a deep sigh that was not entirely intentional. “My family is really small, but they're a lot to deal with on any given day. I decided to stay here for the time being. They—they’re not the _best_ family, and a lot of the time my Auntie and my sister grate my nerves, we fight a lot, and…”

He wasn’t really sure whether he wanted add that they often fucked with his head a lot too and that he often didn’t know how to get out of the funk that it put him in. He was vocal to his closest friends about what happened on at home, but Victoire? She was different story. They were friends of some kind, but there was something really unfamiliar between the two of them, and until Teddy figured out what it was, it would likely stop him from sharing too much about himself. If she happened to be there when something happened, then he couldn’t help that.

There was no doubt this would also annoy him to no end.

Victoire grimaced, but otherwise looked highly sympathetic. “I’m sorry that your family makes you feel that way.”

Teddy nodded at her, not really taking in the words much. Sentiments such as these might have meant something to him when he was younger and more impressionable, but now, they only served to disappoint him.

Many people in his life had expressed these exact same feelings when he told them of what was going on at home, but it didn’t really translate into anything more. People say their part and then leave, doing nothing to help him out. Almost as if he was forgotten right after they got in their say so they didn’t have to feel bad anymore.

Teddy understood. He really did. Sometimes it just wasn’t possible to help someone out, or you couldn’t do the most, or whatever. But what were the chances of everyone he met not helping him?

At one point Teddy truly did believe that he wasn’t worth helping, angry and bitter as he was back then.

“Do you have anywhere to be now?” Teddy asked, steering the conversation elsewhere. He didn’t know if Victoire was uncomfortable, but he was, and that was all that mattered.

“I—no, not really.” Victoire didn’t elaborate, only biting her lip as if struggling to say something.

“Come on, out with it,” he told her. It was better to get it over with than linger on it.

She turned her gaze to him, eyes widened in surprise.

Shifting on his seat to make himself more comfortable, he told her, “Whenever you’re nervous or you’re holding back, you chew on your lip a lot. And you avoid looking people in the eyes.”

Victoire shrugged, conceding. “I didn’t know you knew me that well. But I, um…” She trailed off, and then seemingly gained back her confidence at the thought of something he couldn’t really decipher. “You should come over to my home for Christmas break.”

Teddy blinked, putting his head back a bit in surprise. Whatever he was expecting, it certainly wasn’t this. How odd.

“Yeah,” she continued, gaining momentum, “you should come over, I mean, if you’re only going to stay home alone. I talk about you to them a lot, and I think at this point they’re pretty much all waiting to meet you, and this is the perfect time. I think they’ll actually love you a _lot_—”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Teddy interrupted, waving his hands in an attempt to stop her in her tracks. “First of all, I don’t even know your family all that well. Second, I think it’s too late now, I mean, you’re probably leaving in a couple of days, and third, this is _really_ sudden, I don’t want to surprise your family like that.”

She only waved her hands dismissively. “I’ll take care of all that—but I really want to give you one good Christmas. Even if it really doesn’t change your opinion, I want you to have at least some good memories, yeah? And I don’t leave _too_ soon, I’m taking the tube home in about two days. That should be enough time for you to get your things, right? We have an extra guest room you can stay in too, so that’s not a problem either—”

“You’re really out here acting like I’m really coming home with you for Christmas, huh?”

Instead of looking offended, she fixed him with a point-blank stare. “Well, aren’t you?”

Teddy tilted his head, not really knowing what she was doing.

“If the reservations you stated were the only problems you had, then if they were solved, everything should be good right? Do you really have anything against staying with my family? I mean, you said it yourself, you wanted to get away from your family, and you’d still be doing that. If you have any other reason for not wanting to come, please tell me, and I’ll work around it,” she said sincerely, looking at him with such hope that Teddy felt like he couldn’t say no.

Damn, she was good.

“Yeah, alright,” he said, hanging his head slightly.

Victoire jumped up, doing a happy dance. She held her arms out for a hug, and he hugged her back. He may not be in the best mood, but he couldn't ever refuse a good hug. She continued to give a quick kiss on his cheek, and then bounded off to wherever the fuck she goes with a cheery goodbye, probably to take care of the very things she’d mentioned.

Teddy stared at his hands.

What the hell had just happened?

—

In hindsight, Teddy realized that maybe he should’ve fought harder to refuse Victoire’s offer of going to her home with Christmas. As he looked at the mess of clothes in front of him, he became increasingly hopeless about getting his things packed up in time.

Needless to say, he was having a hard time figuring out what to pack, and how much he needed to pack of everything.

Teddy wanted to say that he needed four pairs of underwear per day, but what was going to do, piss his pants every day? For fuck’s sake.

Dragging his hands down his face, he resolved once more to get his packing done. It shouldn’t take as long as he was taking.

Finally after four more agonizing hours, right before Victoire was set to come, he managed to fit his things into a suitcase, though it had to be said that it was bulging a bit.

Eh, whatever. He can deal with the consequences later on, it didn’t matter.

Right as Teddy was entering the living room, he heard a light knock on the door, and quickly went up to the door to swing it open.

Victoire gave him a grin, and walked into the living room, and asked while absentmindedly surveying her surroundings, “Ready?”

Teddy nodded. “I packed everything I could possibly need while I’m there. Hopefully I didn’t forget anything…” A frown set on his face as he thought about what he packed again. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, comb, socks…

He shook his head, trying to throw away any doubts. Going through the list twice was more than sufficient; there was no need to go through the list a third time. Hell, Ellie dropped by yesterday, and was shocked at the fact that Teddy even bothered to make a list.

It was fairly obvious that Ellie was not a very organized person.

Through the entirety of their travelling, Teddy could only think about the fact of what he would act like when he was with the Delacour-Weasley’s. He wasn’t quite sure what that would entail, but all he knew that he was a bit prone to fits of nervousness with new people, despite the fact that many people regarded him as somewhat charming.

He wasn’t quiet about it either; Victoire had to deal with him asking random ass questions having to do with her family or questions completely off the walls. It was a miracle that she hadn’t strangled him yet. _That_ was how many questions he was asking.

When she finally felt annoyed, she cupped his face in her hands, looked him straight in the eyes, and told him with utmost confidence, “Please don’t worry more about this than you need to. My family is the sweetest—now I know that sounds like I’m biased, but you’ll just have to take my word for it. I promise you that everything you think will go wrong will not go wrong, and if they do, I’ll be there by your side. Now, are you good?”

At that point, Teddy honestly didn’t know what to say to that, much to tongue tied to get anything of use out of his mouth. He opted for nodding, and when she let go of his face, his cheeks were strangely warm. He still had butterflies in his stomach, but for an entirely different reason.

When they’d arrived at Victoire’s home—Shell Cottage as the Delacour-Weasley’s have dubbed it, according to Victoire—Teddy felt somewhat better.

Breathing in the fresh ocean air, and the tranquility of the ocean waves instilled a calm in him that couldn’t be done by anything else. If he didn’t enjoy his stay here, then at least he had the view of the ocean to enjoy.

Shell Cottage itself seemed like an extension of the ocean itself, from the outside at least. The exterior was a mix of all light blues and cool whites, which served to allow him a bit more peace.

“Your home is beautiful,” Teddy had murmured to Victoire, leaning in closer to her to allow her to hear.

She gazed down at him, beaming. “I love it, and I’m glad you do too.”

Teddy couldn’t help but smile back.

As they walked down the cobbled path, the feeling in his stomach started rising again. Once Victoire rang the doorbell, and the door opened to reveal her parents, he immediately plastered on the loveliest smile he had in his repertoire for them.

Her mother—Fleur, was it?—gave a lovely smile of her own, and Bill managed the same.

“Teddy, right?” Bill asked of him, the genial smile never leaving. “It’s nice to meet the person my daughter talks so much about.”

Victoire exclaimed, “Papa!” and Teddy couldn’t stop the disbelieving laugh that escaped him. “Oh, really? All good things I hope.”

There was a lull in the moment until both Fleur and Bill moved out of the way to let the two of them in.

Fleur put a hand on his shoulder with the lightest touch, and showed him where his room for the break was. He thanked her quietly, and entered the room he was given.

It was simple, with a bed in the middle and a nightstand next to it with a lamp. Opposite the bed, there was a small mahogany desk, a nice contrast to all the lighter colors in the room. There was a less than sizeable balcony to the right of the bed.

God, even the interior was stylish. His flat was basically a trash dump that he occasionally deigned to clean.

Setting his suitcase down, he pulled his coat closer to him, and walked out into the balcony out of curiosity.

The view happened to a perfect outlook of the ocean, and Teddy could easily see himself sitting out here to watch the sun rise or set. Now if only there was a small tea table there…

He shook his head of those thoughts almost immediately; this was not his home. But it sure would be nice if he could buy one for himself in the future, now wouldn’t it?

Teddy paused for a moment to watch the sun slowly go down, seagulls creating a cacophony of music. He could almost fall asleep to that, but he was brought out of his thoughts by the light knock on the guest room door.

He turned around quickly, surprised to find that it was Bill smiling at him. Even with the scars, he still looked kinder than Teddy would’ve thought. It was a bad thought, and definitely was wrong of him to think, but old biases die hard. He knew that Bill was kind and genuine person from the way Victoire talked about him, in the occasional moment where she felt soft and nostalgic.

“Oh, hello,” Teddy said, the same smile he gave before on once again.

“Hi. It’s time for dinner,” he told him.

Teddy blinked. That early, really?

He paused, and then chalked it up to his own fucked up eating schedule. Sometimes he ate dinner at eleven o’clock at night or five in the afternoon, no in between.

Shrugging, he followed Bill down the stairs, taking care to take off his coat along the way and hang it on the coat rack.

Victoire had changed out of her previous outfit and was wearing a comfortable pair of pajamas. Currently, she was haranguing her mother about stealing a rice cake out of the pan. Eventually, one whine too many later, she was kicked out of the kitchen to sit with the rest of the family, pouting.

Teddy had to hold back a laugh at her cute expression. As he was smiling at Victoire, he became uncomfortably aware that he was being stared at by someone, and he looked to see that there was a girl and a boy, both probably younger than Victoire, blatantly staring at him. The girl had the decency to look embarrassed, but the little boy gave him a toothy smile, which he returned.

“Hello,” Teddy began to the both of them, “who are you?”

The girl was the first one to speak. “I’m Minnie.”

“I’m Teddy,” he replied. “Is that short for anything?”

“It’s short for Dominique, but I think it works for Minyoung too,” Minnie said thoughtfully. “Anyways, that’s Louis.”

Louis waved cheerfully, smiling again.

“It’s nice to meet you both,” Teddy told the two of them. A moment later, he asked, out of a burning wonder, “Do you have a second name, Vic?”

Victoire looked up, now munching on a piece of cantucci, probably from the centerpiece of the table. “Yeah, it’s Mina. Louis’ is Minho.”

“That’s cool.”

The conversation cut off as the family was called all hands on deck to set the table for dinner. Well, except for him, and began fiddling with his hands. He would have tried to help, but they all seemed to be fine on their own.

As they begun eating, the conversation of the table immediately went everywhere, Victoire talking to Minnie, and Louis chattering to his papa excitedly about his day.

Teddy was happy to eat his food quietly and let them do all the talking; if they had engaged with him, he’d have no idea what to say.

“So, Teddy,” Fleur started.

Well, shit. Maybe he’d spoken too soon.

“We did not really want to drop this on you, but it just happened to turn out this way,” she continued, an apologetic note taking place in her voice. “But we are actually going to the Burrow for the second half of Christmas. You do not have to stay long, but I think our extended family wants to meet you.”

This seemed to catch Victoire’s attention. “Wait, what? I thought we weren’t going to go to be Burrow this year, you told us so.”

“Yes, but…” Fleur trailed off, but Bill finished her thought. “Well, you brought your boyfriend, and suddenly everyone decided they wanted to meet him, so. I’m really sorry about that, but the majority has spoken.” He gave a sympathetic grimace.

The moment he heard the word ‘boyfriend’ Teddy choked. He almost hacked up a lung, but was given water by an unknown hand, and he took it gratefully.

Teddy chanced a look at Victoire, trying to see if she intentionally told them that he was her boyfriend, but she seemed just as confused, if the slight frown on her face was telling of anything.

“Sorry, I just got like a really spicy pocket of flavor from the rice cakes and it just exploded in my throat,” Teddy explained, rubbing his throat the slightest.

“It's fine,” Bill told him, blinking.

Dinner went on smoothly from there, but all Teddy could think about why he didn’t explain that he wasn’t her boyfriend right there.

No—actually, he knew the answer. He really should’ve cleared things up right then, but in that moment, his pride took over, telling him that he shouldn’t embarrass himself more. The relationship between the time passed from that moment and the risk of his pride was positive, exponentially so.

He really got himself into the dumbest situations, didn’t he?

Occasionally, he was asked about himself, a topic that he felt really ambivalent about. If Teddy was being honest, he felt like he knew nothing and everything about himself, and only in situations where he actually needed to know about himself he forgot everything. His mind was never in his favor.

Fleur asked about his family, and despite him being angry at his sister, Teddy could really go on and on about Hope, like the fact that she’d passed her GCSEs with flying colors, or that just the other day she told him about how she’d finished her first oil painting, and that she was finally beginning on that portfolio she’d been saying she’d wanted to work on for so long.

His Aunt Bellatrix though? His Aunt Bellatrix can choke. He didn’t tell them that, of course. It was unlikely that it’d ever get around to her, but there was no such thing about being too safe.

Finally, the affair was over and they were all left alone, though both Minnie and Louis were given stern instruction to go to bed at eleven, but it was clear that it wasn’t going to be enforced by the smile that was pulling at their lips.

The Christmas cheer really did have a way of worming itself into people’s hearts, huh?

Victoire, on the other hand, was impatient about getting the two of them alone upstairs, so when they were all free to go, she immediately pulled him into her room.

“Jesus!” she exclaimed as soon as she was in her room. Teddy took the liberty of sitting on her bed and taking in his surroundings and—hell, was that a BTS poster?

That made him smile; they had at least one thing in common.

Victoire began pacing as she apologized to him. “I’m so sorry about all of this, I didn’t think that they’d actually—” She broke off into incoherent murmurs. “Why aren’t you as distressed as I am about this?”

“It just doesn’t bother me as much as you think it does,” Teddy replied with a shrug. Sure, he was panicked in the moment, but what was done was done. What mattered was what they did moving forward.

“Okay, okay, okay, cool, cool, cool, that’s good.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “When I asked about you coming over, they asked me if you were my boyfriend, and I replied jokingly that you were. I shouldn’t have trusted them to take it as a joke.”

“Maybe that was a bad idea,” he offered, gaze flitting to the frilly green dress hung up on a hanger.

“You think?” she scoffed.

“So, what do we do now?” he asked, brightening again when he found a Red Velvet poster.

“You know,” Victoire mused, plopping herself next to him, “my parents were strangely excited about you coming over after I asked, and I never realized why. Oh _god_, maybe they were happy I finally had a boyfriend.” She gasped suddenly, and Teddy looked at her, startled. “Fuck, I can’t disappoint them! They’ll be so sad!”

“What do you think we should do then?” he reiterated his previous question. He had a few ideas, but he wanted her opinion first.

Victoire didn’t speak for a moment, and then winced a bit. “This is going to be off the walls fucking crazy, but… would you mind please dating me for fake? Just until the end of break or whatever, and later on I’ll tell them I broke up with you.”

Now, that caught his attention. “Are you sure there aren’t any better ideas? I mean I’m sure that they’d understand if you told them the truth—”

“_Please_, Teddy, please, please?” She took his hands, and put his knuckles up to her lips, and it was almost enough to get him to agree. Almost.

Teddy replied to her with a teasing lilt, “Listen, I don’t really know how I feel about you ruining my image in your parents’ eyes for your own benefit—”

“I’ll do anything, Jesus H. Christ.”

“Oh my god, I’m just playing with you. Fine, I’ll do it.”

“Thank you thank you thank you—” She squealed, bringing him into one of her signature bear hugs, and Teddy returned it, lying his head on her shoulders. This felt really nice, but she let go too soon, and he sighed.

“Okay, so how do we play fake dating anyways, sleep in the same bed or?” Victoire looked at him expectantly, absentmindedly tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. It was a little funny to him how he’d never noticed how long her hair was. It was extremely curly, but if it was straightened properly, it’d probably go way past her butt.

“Sleep in the same bed—Victoire. I don’t want your parents to think that we fucked in their home.” Teddy looked at her pointedly, but she merely smiled. “I seriously don’t think it’d take _that_ much for them to believe that we’re dating. I mean, we both didn’t know that they thought we were dating, but they didn’t call us out on anything, like say we weren’t _actually _dating or whatever.” At that statement, he had to pause. Did they really act that much like a couple? Hm, they should really talk about that.

Victoire nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, so you think that we shouldn’t make it too over the top then. So… stuff like forehead kisses and hugs?”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, okay, I feel a lot better now,” Victoire told him, giving a long sigh. “I really am so sorry about this—I did not mean for break to go this way.”

“Honestly, I think this just sounds fun,” Teddy told her sincerely.

“Well I’m glad someone does,” she told him, though the effect was ruined by the slight smile pulling the corner of her lips.

Teddy definitely should not be staring at her lips, so he looked back up to her eyes. Fuck, they were really pretty, abort, _abort_!

He finally settled on staring on the BTS poster behind her. Poster Yoongi was looking especially nice today. Occasionally he got the comment that Teddy looked like him, but it wasn’t as annoying as it should have been.

“Anyways,” Victoire said too loudly for the atmosphere, “I’ll see you tomorrow Teddy.”

She stared at him indecipherably for a moment. Teddy made the move to go, but was pulled back by Victoire, who cupped his cheeks like she did earlier that day and kissed his forehead.

And the blush was back. He only hated blushing so much because his somewhat light skin made it noticeable.

“What was _that _for?”

“Practice,” she giggled. Then she gently pushed him out of her room, and Teddy was left alone to think about what the hell he’d just gotten himself into.


	2. how to live life?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning was met with him being woken up by Louis jumping on him excitedly, talking about how there were going to be fluffy pancakes and berries for breakfast.
> 
> Warning: Talks and some depiction of emotional abuse, and discussions of racism.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah the angst is pretty packed in this one, lol. surprisingly, hope and bellatrix became a significant part of this story without even trying? i guess it's because i couldn't really just let go of the plotline i literally began this story with. 
> 
> i hope you liked this chapter because i'm kind of scared of posting this.

The next morning saw him woken up by Louis jumping on him excitedly, talking about how there were going to be fluffy pancakes and berries for breakfast.

Teddy didn’t really appreciate Louis’ unexpected assault, but the idea of berries and pancakes for breakfast was nice. University life really did have him think that a Nature Valley bar was sufficient enough to get him through the day until lunch or dinner or whatever.

After getting ready properly and grabbing his phone, he went downstairs. Did he wake up late or something? Because everybody was already eating. Hm, maybe that was why Louis had to jump on him to make him get up.

Surely his sleep schedule wasn't that fucked? Sure, he did the occasional all-nighter, but other than that, he got between five to seven hours every other day.

Well—actually, at any given time his body will take any time to sleep in. One time he took a twenty-five hour nap when he’d thought he’d gotten an hour nap. So there was that.

“Good morning, Teddy,” Bill greeted, and instinctively he replied, “I’m doing well, how are you?”

Bill’s genial smile transformed into a grin, and Fleur hid her laugh by shoving a forkful of berries into her mouth. He noticed Victoire did something similar.

“I—that’s not—that isn’t—” Teddy floundered for words, gesturing somewhat wildly with his hands. Finally, he stopped, for not wanting to make even more of a fool of himself. “As you can see from that display, I am _not_ having that great of a morning.” He smiled self-deprecatingly.

“Are you not used to sleeping in that much?” Fleur questioned, a sympathetic glint in her eyes.

“No, not really,” he laughed, and sat down, grabbing the butter knife and fork.

“It’s okay, you just expedited the process a little,” Victoire informed him. To her mother, she asked airily, “So, maman, anything in the books for today?” She was much too happy for the time that it was. Much too cheerful for any time in the day, really.

“No, not really.” Fleur shook her head. “Most of our plans are on or after Christmas.”

Victoire brightened considerably after that (how do you even be more happy than she was?), and took Teddy’s hand in hers. “Do you have any idea what you want to do?”

Usually, he’d be pretty vocal about voicing his ideas, but this was not his home, so that meant it wasn’t his to make a mess of. Nearly everything he could want to do did happen to create a mess, like paint, bake, or just take photos. Creating backdrops or getting a good photo just took a lot of time in general.

“I don’t really want to intrude,” he told her lowly, glancing at Bill and Fleur, hoping they didn’t hear. He wasn’t as nervous as he was yesterday, but new people still made him jumpy, and he didn't know what they wanted from him. As a result, he was a mix of utterly confident or an absolute stuttering mess. It weirded some people out.

“It’s okay,” she reassured. “So long as we clean up after ourselves, we should be good.” She leaned in closer, tilting her head to whisper in his ear, “I promised you that my parents aren’t bad people, and I keep my promises.”

Her breath fanned over his cheek, and suddenly he felt warm. Chancing a look at her parents again, he saw that they were expertly not looking at the two of them, mistaking this as a close moment between a possibly loving couple.

Teddy had to say, Victoire was one sly person.

“Okay,” he replied, giving in. “What if we baked something? I found this really good recipe for—I think it was a brownie recipe with a cookies and cream cheesecake layer in between? I’ll pull it up, it’s on my phone.

Victoire made a hum of acknowledgement, and then mischievous glint appeared in her eyes. Oh, this probably had to do with the whole—what was it? The fake dating thing that they’d both impulsively taken up.

She pulled him up into the kitchen by the hand she was holding. “We should have pretty much everything we need for that—I remember that Minnie made something a few days back for one of her friends' birthday. I think it was brownies and cheesecake separately though. What do you need?”

“Eight ounces of cream cheese,” Teddy began, leaning back on the kitchen counter, “three eggs, vanilla essence, cocoa powder, chocolate, flour, sugar, salt, butter—”

Opening the fridge, she ducked her head, and with her free hand, waved a small block of cream cheese in his general direction. Teddy took it and placed it onto the counter. Taking out the carton of eggs and vanilla essence, she muttered to herself, “The flour should be in that cabinet, right?”

He went to the aforementioned cabinet and brought it out for her. She thanked him, and asked, “So, what first?”

Squinting the slightest at his phone screen, he read aloud, “Preheat the oven—no, we can do that later, uh—oh! First cream the cream cheese, one egg, one-fourth cup of sugar, and two teaspoons of vanilla extract.

“Okay, sounds—oof!” Victoire cut herself off, and Teddy looked down to see Louis hug her leg. “Louis, what the hell?”

From the other room, a voice called, likely Fleur’s, “Language!”

Victoire rolled her eyes, and gave a look to Teddy. “You know, they always say that but they don’t do anything about it.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but Louis went off into a flurry of questions and Teddy wondered how the hell he managed to breathe in between all that.

“What are you making? Is that cream cheese? Ooh, are you making cheesecake like Minnie did the other day? I tried it and it was _so_ good, but then she yelled at me for eating too much of it—”

A flutter of irritation rose up in his chest, and he felt of sort of bad for feeling that way; Louis was just a kid and Victoire’s little brother at that, so he didn’t really want to paint a bad image of himself in front of her.

“How old is he?”

Releasing an exasperated sigh, she answered, “He’s eight. Are you getting annoyed already? Louis has only just begun.”

Teddy shrugged. “I’m not really used to it.”

“You said you had a seventeen year old sister, so you had to have dealt with an annoying little kid sometime in your life. Shouldn’t you be used to it?”

He snorted. “No. I was annoyed at her then, and I’m still annoyed at her now. I may have gotten better at dealing with her, but the feelings are all the same.”

“Right.” Addressing Louis, Victoire tried to cajole, “Can you please stay with maman and papa for a while?”

Louis pouted. “But I want to watch you bake…”

She frowned at this, seemingly at a loss for words.

“Right now we want to bake together,” Teddy coaxed in his sweetest voice, getting at eyelevel with Louis. “What if Victoire promised to make something with you later?” He looked up at her, looking at her for an answer.

It was Louis who answered enthusiastically though, and she had no choice but to agree.

“Really?” she asked him incredulously after he left.

Teddy shrugged. “You didn’t know what else to do, and that was all I could think of on the spot.”

After that whole ordeal, the first half of the recipe went with a few bumps—they’d both accidentally made the mistake of not letting the butter or the cream cheese reach room temperature and had to do a lot of hard whisking and improvisation. They’d also added the cocoa powder to the brownie batter one step too early, but they’d both agreed that they weren't aiming to be the next MasterChef or anything so it didn’t really matter too much.

When it came to adding the flour, Teddy finally noticed the container it was in, and held it up questioningly to Victoire. She only shrugged. “We happen to use whatever dishes we can.”

Taking the measuring cup, she measured out three-fourths cups of flour. Taking the spatula, she attempted to fold it in nicely into the batter, but failed horribly as a Teddy breathed in a whole cloud of flour, and was subsequently became covered in it.

Teddy almost hacked up a lung. He spluttered, “Vicky!” but she only burst out into loud peals of laughter.

“Oh my _god_—you look—you look—” Victoire couldn’t really speak between her giggles, but she finally stopped to say, “You look like a ghost!”

“A ghost?” he laughed.

“A very cute one, yes,” she added on, and Teddy found it hard to tell whether she was flirting or acting. When it came to her, the line seemed to be blurred; it could be the fact that she wanted her parents to catch on to the fact that they were openly flirting, but then again who was watching? What did she need to prove?

Victoire raised one of her hands and dusted off some of the flour gently, touching the corner of his lips. She leaned in closer, and Teddy’s brain short circuited for half a second, completely unsure of what was happening or even where he was.

Was she going to kiss him? Oh god, he’s kissed people before, but he was so out of practice that it was hardly worth anything since it had been so long. What do you do? Like, what the fuck?

Perhaps Victoire might have gone further if they had stayed in the moment, but Minnie barged into the kitchen, making the motion of fake retching. “Leave room for Jesus Christ you two!” She grabbed a bowl of strawberries from the fridge and left them alone.

Teddy moved away, and looked at his phone to see what they had to do next to desperately hide how flustered he felt. He opened Safari, though his attention was caught by the text message he’d just received from his sister.

He frowned, looking at the two word sentence, unsure of whether to respond at all.

(11:59 a.m.) **i’m sorry.**

There were a lot of things Hope could be sorry for, but there was no doubt that she was apologizing for what happened a couple days back—the whole 'you’re abandoning me and Auntie incident.' They both had some hurtful things, but Hope had indeed taken it too far, and if he was being totally honest, Teddy didn’t really _want _forgive her for calling him ungrateful and selfish. She sounded much too like the voice in his head, and he didn't like that. He'd forgive her, but not now. He needed time.

And the thing was, he _knew _that he was entitled to take his time and see what he wanted to do moving forward, and that if he didn’t want to forgive his sister, he could absolutely do that, but on the other hand, that was his _sister_.

They’d literally been through thick and thin together, and that would all go down the drain if Teddy was the one who decided to cut the ties. And if he did that, he’d willingly be leaving Hope to their fucking nightmare of a great aunt, and he couldn’t just do that. That was not a decision someone could make accidentally. That was a decision someone would have to think through and live with the consequences of.

Jesus fucking Christ. He never meant for any of this to happen. It was just one Christmas break, sure, but it was also a culmination of all the things up to that point—Teddy, for the life of him, could not fucking _bear_ to live with his Auntie Bellatrix anymore.

If he’d been given a better life, hell, even if Andromeda Black was alive to take care of them, then there wasn't a doubt in his mind about the fact that he’d be in a very different, much happier place right now.

“Teddy?”

Teddy looked up at Victoire, and was surprised to a see an increasingly concerned look on her face. “Yeah?”

“Are you good?” Tentatively, she placed a hand on his shoulder. “You look like you’re about to cry.”

And that was all it took to break. Everybody knew that if someone seemed like they were about to cry, you don’t actually point it out. It was practically law. So maybe that was why he was crying on the Delacour-Weasley’s kitchen floor right now.

Yeah, that was it.

Victoire held her arms out, and he wasn’t hesitant in taking up her offer of a hug. “Do you want to talk about it or anything?”

Teddy shook his head no. “Later,” he mumbled into her shoulder.

He couldn’t figure out how Victoire managed to comfort him the whole time like that or how the moment had transformed from playful to heartbreaking at just the drop of a hat; all he knew that he was grateful that it was at least her he had by his side.

—

The next day came quickly, which for Teddy, was a damn relief. Yesterday, he’d spent the rest of the day in his guest room with the excuse that he was suddenly tired, but the truth was he was not a particularly quiet person while crying. He wasn’t an ugly crier by any means, but that was still embarrassing; to be crying in front of people you had only known for one day was… humiliating. You had no idea what they really thought of you after you cry like that.

He’d promised he’d never cry like that in front of anyone, and look where that went. Fucking hell.

It was because of this that Bill approaching him was a surprise.

As he Bill got closer, Teddy attempted to tamp down the rose pink that was taking over his cheeks. “Um—hi, Mr. Weasley.”

Bill waved at him, moving past him to sit at the seat adjacent to him at the dining table.

Monitoring his movements closely, Teddy became increasingly aware of the fact that he came to talk. Oh no. Oh no no no no no no.

For the most part, Victoire’s papa asked lighthearted questions, such as what he was concentrating in at university, how old was he, or how university life was going in general, and that his eyebrow piercing was rad (well, not _those words _specifically, but the effect was all the same).

Teddy answered honestly to these questions—physics with astronomy, I’m twenty-two, kind of difficult, but thank you for asking, and thank you again, I got it when I was dumb and eighteen.

“So,” Bill said, shifting the topic, “when did you and Tori meet?”

Teddy’s mind blanked for a moment, like, _who the hell was Tori? _Absolute dumbass energy. “Oh, I met her through my roommate. Victoire’s really good friends with her, so she came over to my flat a lot to hang out with Ellie. We got to talking then and really hit it off.”

Bill nodded, seemingly not unsatisfied with that answer. At least Teddy was doing something right.

There was a lull in conversation as Teddy contemplated his own questions. “What do you think of Victoire? Do you think she’s a good person?”

Bill laughed a laugh that echoed through the home. Maybe Teddy would have backed down, but it was a genuine question, and he wanted to know the answer. “That’s a brave question to ask. What makes you curious?

“I…” Teddy shrugged, not sure of whether to answer truthfully. “I mean, I’m not sure. I’ve been hurt badly before, especially by people I love. I just don’t want Victoire to be one of them, I guess.”

“I’m sorry that’s happened to you. I think she’s a genuine person that tries her best to be good, but I really think that’s up to you to decide, since as you can probably see, I’m biased.”

“Now, I guess it’s my turn. I don’t mean to sound overprotective when I ask this,” Bill began, and though Teddy was smiling on the outside, he was screaming on the inside. Who actually believed it when people say that they didn’t mean to be something? It was like prefacing a sentence with ‘I don’t mean to be racist but’ and then proceeding to say something extremely racist. “I know my daughter is capable of making her own decisions, and I definitely won’t stop her from doing most things, but I have my own reservations about you as well. Just exactly why are you dating Tori?”

Teddy chewed on his lip, looking off to the side. There was a nice painting of a field of flowers on the wall opposite the dining table, as well as an odd mix of family photos.

That was a genuinely hard question to answer, and he’d had to change it up a bit so that the question was ‘why are you _friends _with Tori?’ Even then, that was… iffy.

Teddy never really knew why he became friends with people, only just that they were attractive to him and his judgements of them were favorable.

Racking his brain for anything, and then from his mouth came—“She feels like home.”

Bill’s responding expression was nothing short of puzzled.

Even Teddy had to rewind a bit and think back to what he said. It wasn’t necessarily a bad answer, but it was just a confusing one. Even he didn't know what he meant.

“Okay?” There was a strange inflection at the end that Teddy didn’t know how to discern. Then, more assuredly Bill repeated. “Okay. Thank you for talking with me today.” He smiled, and Teddy watched him leave just as Victoire arrived to have a late lunch.

She bounded off to the fridge to grab a box, and sat down in the seat that Bill was just in.

“Heya Teddy,” Victoire greeted, prising off the lid of the box to reveal cold Alfredo ravioli. She stabbed a fork into one of them and shoved the whole thing in her mouth.

“Classy,” Teddy commented, slightly disgusted.

She swallowed. While pointing her fork at him, she said, “Don’t.”

He moved to grab a piece of ravioli, and surprisingly she did not stop him. If it were him, he’d probably slap the hand away. Pasta was his favorite.

“Did you know that your dad was going to do the whole ‘I have to be a threatening dad’ routine today?” he asked her casually.

Victoire stared at him, eyebrows raised. “I did not.” She appeared to have more questions and things she wanted to say, but whatever it was didn’t look to be important as she chose not to voice them. If that was the case, it was likely about the whole fake dating situation on their hands; they couldn’t talk about that when her parents were in hearing range. “What did he ask?”

“Just stuff about me, and then like how we met.”

“We met because of your roommate, right?”

“Yes. How do you not remember that?”

“Just clarifying, I don’t really remember how I meet people.”

Teddy shrugged and let the conversation end, and stared off onto a spot on the table. What would be in the schedule for today? It was typically a tossup most of time, decided in the moment or on the day of. That either made for interesting days, or boring days.

Would he prefer this over staying home like planned to? He didn’t really do anything out of the ordinary here than he would have at home, except perhaps he’d probably be a bit more comfortable about lounging about in his pajamas.

Speaking of which, he’d totally had plans to binge Netflix to catch up on all the TV shows that he’d missed out on during the semester. He’d have to wait until summer now to catch up.

No, wait, that was wrong. Teddy would have nearly the rest of his life to catch up on those shows; the upcoming semester would be his last, and then everything else was just open to him for the most part. He could start on his Master’s if he wanted to, but first he wanted a grasp on how the hell to live life on his own, like buying an apartment, paying his own taxes, and getting a job.

That was wild as hell. Who would have thought that he’d actually make through to the other side of university, or that he’d actually get a chance to live his life the way he wanted to? Certainly not him.

Sure, Teddy went to university and everything, and he’d aspired to be able to live freely, but there was always a voice in his head that told him he’d never make it that far. It took a lot of willpower and strength to push that voice away and fight it.

The fact he was here—breathing—was nothing short of a miracle, especially considering all his Auntie Bellatrix’s attempts to set him back.

Teddy still had a hard time believing it.

There was a tap on his shoulder, and he blinked up to see Fleur. Out of the corner of his eye, Victoire was still there, absentmindedly scrolling on her phone.

“Are you okay?” she asked, the same expression of concern that was on Victoire’s face on hers. He could see where Victoire got certain mannerisms from.

Teddy shook his head slightly. “Yeah, I was just thinking. Sorry for worrying you.”

Fleur waved it off—and, oh, hey, there was another mannerism similar between the two. “I wanted to ask if you wanted to come with us to watch a play—the one the local church always hosts around this time. Dominique and Louis have already said yes, Victoire said no, but you…?”

Teddy scrunched his nose in distaste. When he was younger, a little bit before his sister had been born, his Auntie Bellatrix would always drag him along to any and every play. They were fun at first but they quickly became boring, and the memory had since soured in light of his parents’ deaths and his Auntie Bellatrix’s appalling behavior. The only productions he’d been to were the ones that his sister had been featured in, but even that was with some reluctance.

He may not be best fan of staying at home and doing nothing for too long, but even that seemed preferable to this, regardless of the fact that it was Victoire’s family he had for company.

“I’m sorry, but I think I’ll pass this time around,” he replied, trying to look apologetic for his previous reaction.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Fleur replied immediately. “And that’s alright, it was sudden anyways. We’re leaving in a few minutes so you two will be alone.” Her eyes suddenly became critical, and she called for Victoire. “Don’t do anything bad while we’re gone.”

“Maman!” Victoire shrieked, her cheeks becoming a cherry red. Teddy was increasingly warm too. “We won’t. We haven’t even—we haven’t—” She stopped talking though she continued to make indignant noises.

Fleur laughed. “Yes, yes, I get it. But I had to let you know. I think the others are waiting outside for me now, so I’ll go on now. Have fun together.”

The front door clicked quietly behind her, and Teddy turned to see that Victoire was still looking embarrassed. “I don’t know where she gets off telling that to us—I literally once overheard my parents talking about when they were younger, and I know for a fact that they’d fucked at least three times at my Papa’s workplace.”

At that remark, Teddy literally choked on air. “I don’t—I think—I’m not really sure how I feel about you using such a crass term for people… that… old. And besides, I don’t think we’re going to have sex—actually, that’s pretty much fact right now.”

Victoire shrugged, nonchalant. “It’s all the same, and my point still stands.”

“Maybe so. But—you’re Papa’s workplace? Your dad, I can kind of see doing that, but from the moment I met her, she seemed like, well, I don’t know. Your typical French lady? Prim and proper and all of that.”

Victoire rolled her eyes. “Your bias is showing.”

“Yes, I know, and I also know that your maman is more than a caricature. But you can’t deny that she sort of is a bit of a classy lady.”

“I mean sure, but that’s also because you’re here, and she has to be nice to you and make a good impression. You know? You haven’t seen her when she was ready to fight a dude for making Minnie cry. Or how she was when she dealt with the whole host of rude remarks from my Nana, or the jealousy she received from my Aunt Ginny.”

Teddy’s eyebrows raised into his hairline. “Oh—hell, really? To come from your own boyfriend’s mother—that must suck.”

“It did suck, for a while.” Victoire leaned back in her chair, making herself comfortable. “But she grew out of it eventually, at the pressure of her own children. Lucky for that too, especially because nearly all of her children went off and married people, and well, Nana can't hate everyone who pulls her children away from her.”

“It’s nice to know people can change their ways, even when your Grandma is as old as she is. I understand what your mother went through—especially since my own Auntie was the same way—still is.”

She frowned, and there was a trace of distress in her eyes. “And—and you were _raised _by her? Jesus fucking Christ, I’m so sorry. No one deserved to be treated like that, especially in their own family.”

When he spoke, there despondent note to it. “Yeah—it’s whatever. I wanted to believe that she wasn’t, especially because she has, well, _us_, but as I grew up I learned that it meant shit. Like, I realized how fucked up it was that she used us as the reason for the fact that she _wasn’t _racist." He sighed deeply. "That was a while back though; she’s openly conservative now. Coming out but for, like, racist people.”

Victoire let out a loud laugh, and then promptly covered her mouth with her hand, trying to curb her laughter.

In that moment, his phone began to get notifications one after another, and Teddy could only guess as to who it was. No one else that he knew of sent that many texts at once.

“Speak of the fucking devil,” he said bitterly when he confirmed it was in fact who he thought it was. He didn’t wait for Victoire’s response and instead read the messages.

(1:32 p.m.) _You know, I didn’t really believe you when you said you weren’t coming home for Christmas break._

(1:32 p.m.) _It’s supposed to be a time for family, and yet. Do you not think of me as your family? After I raised you for nearly your whole damn life?_

(1:32 p.m.) _Do you realize that you’ve practically left your sister alone for the past few days? She has no one to talk to at all. Do you even love her? Like a brother is supposed to? Jesus fucking Christ._

(1:32 p.m.) _I thought you were a better person. Your parents would be disappointed in you._

(1:32 p.m.) _Was it laziness? Was that it? _

(1:32 p.m.) _You know what? Don’t come home next time. I don’t care anymore._

Teddy laughed. It was of the sharp sort, but not at all surprised. More incredulous, really. “Of _fucking _course! Of course she’d say that! She can never leave me be, she _always_ has to get in the last fucking word!”

“Teddy, Teddy,” Victoire called out, following as he paced back and forth rapidly. “Can I know what she said?”

He threw his phone to her and she caught it deftly. “Just—just go through the texts. I don’t care anymore,” he told her, echoing the last of his Auntie’s texts.

Where the hell does she get off thinking that she can say those things to him? God, it was like she made a checklist of all the things she needed to achieve in those messages; guilt-trip him, mention his sister, mention his parents, talk about how _she_ was the one who raised the both of them and he should be grateful for that—never mind the fact that he was the one who raised both himself and his sister—make comments about his work ethic, attack his self-worth, and use pretty much every emotional tactic under the sun.

The worst part of all this was that it worked.

Teddy liked to think that he had moved on from his Aunt Bellatrix, that he’d become a person independent of needing her, but at times like this it all seemed like a lie.

Consider that he did move on from Bellatrix, if only a little. That was still progress, and if she’d only mentioned herself, he’d probably be only half as angry as he was now. The weaving in of his sister and his parents were blatant attempts at trying to hurt him, and lo and behold, those were in fact where he was the most vulnerable. 

Teddy hated thinking about the fact that his Auntie genuinely thought he’d be happy to see his sister dead—something that she’d told him to his face when he was fifteen. And then she went on a rant about how she was only one who cared about Hope, making sure to compliment her in her usual backhanded ways, saying how Hope was _such _a well-behaved child, unlike him, whose only talent was knowing every way to disappoint her.

Sometimes she was so obvious in her distaste of him that it was funny to think about. It wasn’t as funny then. Fifteen year old Teddy thought it was all deserved. It had hurt even more when Hope had smiled the in the most genuine of ways, taking any validation she could. Now, he chalked it up to the fact that she wanted approval from her, and he didn’t blame her one bit. It would hypocritical of him to place blame on her for something he’d once wanted too.

In the end, his Aunt only regarded him and Hope as weapons to use against the other. It was indeed a hard pill to swallow, because in the end she’d taken a sledgehammer to their relationship for her own personal gain.

Of the people Teddy had told, they all thought it was strange that a brother who’d practically took care of his sister for most of her life weren’t as close as they should be.

“Teddy, come on, Teddy,” Victoire was saying, he belatedly noticed. She got up from her seat at the dining table—they were still in the dining hall?—and gently lead him to the couch in the living room.

“I read the messages, but I didn’t read past what she sent you then,” Victoire informed him, and Teddy couldn’t tell whether she was speaking softly or if his mind was making it up for him. Either way, he was oddly comforted if only for a moment.

“Thanks,” he sighed. He wanted to say more, how he appreciated her respect of his privacy even though he’d given his permission, how she wasn’t trying to scare him but not treating him like a child—there was plenty to say. He just didn’t know how to say it, so he leaned his head on her shoulder.

“I know I’m probably being annoying at this point,” Victoire started to say, a humorous note ringing in her tone, “but do you want to talk about it?”

“I mean, I think I’d like to,” Teddy told her. “There’s just a lot to unpack there. It looks bad just from what she sent me, but it’s also everything that came before that too.”

“Yeah, she’s… I’d say that she’s a bitch, but I don’t think that covers all the bases. She’s very manipulative.”

“Yes,” Teddy agreed, wrapping his arms around her when she looped an arm around his back.

“Who’s your Auntie again? You only saved her as ‘grade a bitch’ which is funny but not really that helpful. I agree with the nickname, though.”

“Ah, her name’s Bellatrix Black. Her last name used to be Lestrange, but then her husband died, so.”

Victoire didn’t reply for a very long time, and Teddy thought that maybe she’d didn’t hear. “Vic?” he called.

She blinked. “No, sorry, I was just thinking. That name is really familiar to me for some reason…” She trailed off again into her thoughts. Not long later, he heard a loud gasp. “Oh my god, I think my Aunt Hermione’s met her. Tell me, who are your parents?

“Um, Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks.”

“Yeah—then I think that she definitely met her. My Uncle Harry knew your parents. Um, when they died, I think they died, your parents I mean, I think Harry and Ginny tried to get custody of you and… Hope?” At Teddy’s encouraging nod, she continued. “Yeah, of you and Hope, as I think they were your godparents or something, but then Bellatrix, that sad excuse of a human being—” Teddy felt oddly vindicated by that, and he grinned to himself. “—pulled the rug from underneath them. Since she had a closer relation to you, she was given custody. Who knows how she managed to present herself as a caring and responsible parent. Clearly she’s not. She confused literally everybody when she just. Disappeared off the face of the earth. She’s sneaky.”

This was all very new information to Teddy, but he didn’t have the capacity to give any sort of reaction. “You know, for someone who literally didn’t know about this moments before, you really knew that in detail,” he yawned.

“I forgot the names,” Victoire replied sheepishly, moving her shoulders and effectively jostling his head. “I’ve been told this story quite a few times, and I also was there to see it happen too. I don’t think I understood what was going on.”

“Right,” Teddy said, closing his eyes, but was harshly taken out of his sleepy stupor by the front door suddenly slamming open. He quickly moved away from Victoire, but still felt like they had been caught making out or something from the strange look both Bill and Minnie had given them.

“Um, hello,” Teddy was the first one to say. “You’re all back early.”

“No,” Minnie replied, throwing off her shoes and making Fleur scold her, “we’re just on time. Apparently just in time to see you two fuck.”

“Dom,” Bill sighed. “Language please.”

“Really?” Minnie asked him incredulously. “_You’re _telling me not to cuss?”

“I—yeah, you’re right,” he admitted reluctantly, and they all split off farther into the home to do their own thing.

Teddy settled himself back in his original position, and she did the same.

“My family is—”

“—is perfectly wonderful,” Teddy finished for her, hoping to curb any harsh comments from her. After the way they treated him in just three days, he might scream if she said anything unjustifiably bad about them. “I like them. You were right.”

“Really? I’m glad.” There was a note of pride in her voice. Funny, he would’ve thought that she’d say—“I told you so!”

There it was.

“You sure did,” he laughed to her. “By the way, can we stay like this for a while? I’m really comfortable.

“Yeah, this is fine.” And then she moved closer to him, and Teddy was not exactly content, considering the events of before, but he did feel a lot better.


	3. morning dew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wow,” Teddy murmured in Victoire’s ear, leaning over, “this home is quite old, huh?”
> 
> Warning: Talks of emotional abuse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't know how to write kiss scenes people so i was mostly screaming as i was writing the scene, kinda like how teddy was 
> 
> also i am unhealthily worried about how i wrote teddy and victoire, like did i write them well enough? do they seem plausible? is it give and take, not just take? do they work? questions, questions, questions

“Wow,” Teddy murmured, leaning closer to Victoire, “this home is quite old, isn't it?”

“Well, yeah, its seen generations of Weasley families come and go. I don’t know how it’s standing today.”

He opened his mouth, but was abruptly cut off by Minnie pushing past them. “_God_, there’s no need to make fun of us single asses today. Leave room for Jesus, literally you two are so damn close.”

Blushing, Teddy moved away from Victoire. He definitely thought they’d be getting those kinds of comments from Victoire’s parents, not from Dominique Delacour-Weasley of all things.

This family continued to surprise him every day.

When Minnie tried opening the gate to the Burrow, as they’ve called it, the gate fell and Teddy let out a little “Oh!”

“Its fine,” Victoire dismissed, “this happens a lot. We usually put it back on its hinges once everyone arrives.”

“Why don’t you replace it?”

“Nostalgia. That old thing has been there for like two decades. It’s become a bit of a running joke.”

Teddy hummed as acceptance of the answer, and walked behind Victoire to enter the home.

They’d arrived alone. Bill and Fleur had came earlier in the day for preparations, and had allowed them to stay in for the first half of the day.

“It’s probably because you’re here,” Victoire had told him with a tone of incredulity in her voice. “They’re always nicer when guests are over. Last year they basically kicked our asses out of bed by five thirty in the morning.”

Teddy had only laughed, telling her, “Well, at least you got to sleep in this Christmas.”

Entering the Burrow was a surreal experience. He’d never seen a house that had screamed home before, where all the walls were old but clearly well loved, the couches worn but comfortable, and windows letting the interior be bright even on the darkest days. This home had seen a lot, that seemed to be for sure. Nothing like the grim home he grew up in.

They were immediately greeted by one of Victoire’s uncles—well, Victoire was. He, on the other hand, stood around, taking note of his surroundings until it was his turn.

Victoire’s uncle finally turned to him, and held a hand out. “Hi, I’m Fred Weasley. And you are?”

Teddy blinked for a moment, not expecting that sort of polite introduction. Fred Weasley the first, according to Victoire, was a complete hell-raiser, along with his twin brother, George Weasley.

“I’m Teddy Lupin,” he said, looking suspiciously at the outstretched hand. Apparently, this name was familiar to Fred, as his eyebrows raised significantly. His face transformed into a grin when he saw Teddy’s suspicious eying of his hand.

“Already cautious, eh?”

Teddy smiled at him and shrugged.

“Well, you’d be right,” Fred told him cheerily. He revealed a bottle whipped cream, and Teddy spent a good bit trying to figure out where the hell it came from. When he asked, all he got was a sly, “A magician _never _reveals his secrets!”

From his side, Victoire was mildly impressed yet horrified. “That man… always has something up his sleeve, literally or figuratively. He’s the one Minnie got her pranking habits from. Now, come on, I’ve got people to introduce you to. If you forget a name, that’s fair. Don’t get too tired.”

With a growing sense of doom in his tummy, the introductions began. Teddy heard a multitude of names, some of which he heard twice. Why you would name a child after someone in the family that was alive was beyond him. You had so many people in the family _already_; why confuse yourself like that?

There was Charlie, Ron, Audrey, Angelina, Hermione, Percy, James Sirius, Fred Weasley the second, and many more that Teddy attempted to remember, but they all quickly went out the window of his brain. So.

He chatted with most of them, but never really got past the small talk phase as everyone in the room apparently wanted to introduce themselves. He was informed that this was because he was a bit of a hot topic around here.

Barring that, wasn’t it Teddy’s job to introduce himself? Or even Victoire’s, who had offered?

George Weasley was the most recent member of the Weasley family that he’d met. He was a jovial man, Teddy noted, and that made sense considering his reputation. The fact that he was a chemist made it all that much funnier; for who else would the job be more perfect for?

“So, you’re dating dear ol’ Vic, I’ve heard?” George nudged his arm, and Victoire gave a sidelong look, perhaps curious to see how Teddy would answer.

“…Yes.”

“I didn’t really believe it at first, you know, I told her that anyone who’d date her would be lucky, but she’s also a lot to deal with at the same time.”

“George,” Victoire gasped, almost to a comedic effect, “that’s kind of rude isn’t it?”

As they argued about what made something rude or didn’t, Teddy appraised George, contemplating his words. Would he describe Victoire as something to deal with in the first place? Sure, she had somewhat of tendency to put her foot in her mouth, and maybe too blunt for the circumstance, but was being her friend hard?

The answer felt like no, since he genuinely felt like what George called 'dealing with' was what Teddy called being friends with her. Victoire never felt like a burden or a chore, and when there was a lull in their conversation, he told George of this.

She gave him a prideful smile, as to say ‘Hell yeah, that’s my boyfriend!’ except no, he was just being a good friend. Because that was what good friends did, right?

George was similarly pleased. “Good answer.” He gained a mischievous glint in his eye. “So, have you two kissed yet?” His gaze flitted back and forth between them.

Victoire made an indignant noise, and Teddy pulled his gaze away to look at a spot on the wall. Reluctantly, he answered, “Um, no, not yet. That’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it?”

George did not lose the mischievous look, and instead patted Teddy’s back and walked off.

Weird.

The family around him milled about and there wasn’t a lack of people to talk to—in fact his socializing meter had practically drained, and he’d say that he had a pretty high tolerance.

How long did he have to stay here again? He was good to take a solid night’s rest right about now.

Victoire questioned him sympathetically, “Tired?”

“How could you tell?” There was a joking tone in the question.

“Oh, I don’t know, from the way the light died in your eyes. Normal stuff.”

Teddy snorted and shook his head.

By the time that everyone was introduced to him and had gotten the chance to talk, it was nearing the afternoon, and the sunshine outside was reaching its peak.

It was Christmas and it was a perfect day.

Victoire had commented on it, “We’d usually place a table outside to eat lunch, but since it’s literally the dead of fucking winter, we have to eat inside.”

That had gotten her a couple of reprimands for language, as the family were congregating around the huge table that they’d set up for lunch, and Teddy sat down on a seat at the very end of the table, next to someone he didn’t recognize.

Just how many people were in this family?

Considering that he’d be sitting next to this girl for a few hours, and not Victoire, he might as well spark up a conversation. He was tired, yeah, but he was still expected to keep some reputation here, and it wouldn’t really look that great if he just suddenly shut himself off to the rest of the family.

“Hello,” he began to her, “I’m Teddy.”

The girl looked to him, and she was more striking than he originally thought, even if she had pin straight black hair and brown eyes. And—wow, Victoire was not kidding when she said the nearly the entirety of her family was Asian.

She smiled perfunctorily. “Hi. I’m Molly.” Looking him up and down, she continued, “So you’re the infamous Teddy Lupin?”

“I’m infamous already? I’m flattered.”

“Even before you two started dating, Victoire talked about some. I think she liked you even then.” Molly stopped as she made a move to fill her plate with food, and Teddy followed.

Now, this would be the second time that someone had told him that she talked about him to her family. It was a little strange knowing that and being in the dark about what exactly Victoire had said about him, but it was probably nothing bad, as she’d never been the type of person to talk behind people’s backs when it was just as easy to talk to them—this was what Victoire had told him. Still, it made him curious, and then he was wondering just why exactly she talked about him.

Sure, it was bound to happen to everyone sometime or another in passing, likely, but why to the extent that Victoire did about him, apparently?

All of it seemed unnecessary… and yet.

There could be any reason possible, but the one that he was fixated on was the fact that perhaps that maybe she liked him. He and Victoire weren’t too terribly similar, but either talking too much about a person or seeming like he talked too much about a person because he wanted to get to know them more was basically a trademark of his. Though he never dated any of the people that he liked for obvious reasons—like, hey, university, classes, and homework were a thing—this was something he always did.

Was it possible that that was why Victoire did it too? Did Victoire like him? And well, it would explain her odd behavior when she initiated certain moments, even when she didn’t have to put up a show for her family.

Did Victoire like him? That was the million dollar question, and Teddy paused his movements to think about just exactly what he had asked himself.

_Did Victoire like him?_ What a ridiculous question. Why not just come out with it if she did happen to like him? Why play up this whole fake dating fiasco?

Why not date him for real?

But then that brought up the whole idea of whether Teddy liked her like that—he wouldn’t date someone he couldn’t see at least a couple months into his future, and he genuinely saw that for her, as a friend or as a girlfriend. That was also including that fact that he generally was shit at keeping in touch. Although, that was definitely a habit he was trying to kick.

Jesus, everything was so confusing. Why do feelings have to be so complicated? Why did he have to be in this particular situation? Why did he meet Victoire?

Everything was dumb, so so dumb.

His train of thought was cut off by Molly raising a question. “You go to the same university as Victoire, yeah? So what do you study?”

A sort of run of the mill question, but sometimes it happened to be his favorite, because like, he got to talk about what he was passionate about, even if only for like a second? With the exception of Victoire, not a lot liked to listen him ramble on and on about space, because it was either too complicated or too boring. Which made sense, since the subject was a lot of calculus and physics. “Physics with astronomy.”

Molly lit up at that, and Teddy was hopeful. “Really? I’m kind of into astrophysics, but it’s sort of whatever. I need to introduce you to my mum, because she’s an astrophysicist for the space agency and has her doctorates.”

“Really?” It would in fact be really nice to get some guidance as he had not one single idea about what he was doing. That was further doubled when he realized that while being a STEM major may have some really nice payoffs, you needed at least a Master’s to get anywhere near earning that. Which sucked, but it was something he was willing to do. He needed a steady job, so. Maybe as a fellow or a teaching assistant. “I’d love to talk to her. Maybe later though.”

Molly shrugged. “Fair. We don’t have much time right now, huh? Especially since we’re literally split up into the grownups and the kids. Which is dumb, because like the oldest is twenty years old, which is me. And Victoire too, I guess.”

“You guess?” he laughed.

“Listen, you can’t expect me to remember shit, okay?” Molly told him, waving off someone who reprimanded her. Hell, this family _really_ didn’t like people cussing. Truly odd because cuss words have practically become colloquialisms for his generation. “I don’t remember my own age or birthday because it’s literally all filled up with journalism and politics.”

“Why… that specifically?”

“Because I study journalism and political science at uni and it’s a complete nightmare. I used to like writing a lot when I was younger, and I still do, but… wow. I sure did underestimate how hard it would be, which was really dumb, because like, I write? I know how hard it is to put words on paper? I knew that my English Lit classes were hell? I’m so dumb,” Molly laughed to him.

“It happens, and it happened to me too,” Teddy told him, laughing along with her. “I thought I was _good _at physics and maths before this.”

“I think it might be the environment,” Molly added on thoughtfully. “I mean, no better place than school to make you think you’re better in a subject than you actually are, whether by shitty teaching or good teaching. Because university is a lot different, and man does it fuck you up the first semester.”

The rest of the conversation consisted of a whole array of topics, but the most pertinent things he’d learned that was telling of her personality was that when she was younger, she’d found a butterfly she liked and had climbed a tree and subsequently fell out of it just for a picture, that she was older sister to Lucy Weasley by seven years and that she liked being an older sister because it wasn’t the nightmare that most other older siblings had to deal with (Teddy had made a face at that, because he was one of them), and that her parents were Audrey and Percy Weasley, and every time, people were confused by the fact that she was their daughter. Supposedly, she was just very unlike them.

Teddy wouldn’t know though, now would he? He continued to listen to Molly’s stories, which reminded him of the stories Hope told him, and he briefly wondered if this was the Molly that his sister was friends with. Hope had never really bothered to tell him her last name, and he never made the connection because fuck, there were already like thirty Mollys at his university, how was he supposed to know? They even both spoke similarly, almost to the point that it was funny when he thought that he’d just heard Hope just then.

And then he realized that it was Hope that he was hearing; the knocking of the main door had opened to reveal her, and yikes on a trike, this absolutely was _not _what he was expecting, though admittedly, he didn’t expect a lot of things.

Well, fuck.

Teddy turned around halfway, figuring that he was already caught, so fuck it. He made eye contact with Hope, who was currently greeting the person who had opened the door (Percy, possibly?).

It was comical the way her eyes had widened.

Honestly, he felt sort of guilty. He told his Auntie and Hope that he’d be staying at his flat for Christmas, and then he went and did something like go to Victoire’s for the break?

It didn’t look too good for him, and he loathed the fact that he felt guilty because he was entitled to whatever he wanted with his time, even if that meant staying at another family’s home.

Hope gained a red in her cheeks, but otherwise ignored Teddy for the moment as she greeted the Weasley family, and as soon as she finished, she sat down in the empty seat next to him, which was a… confusing move, considering that she was supposed to be mad at him. Well, actually, Molly was there too, so that was probably why.

The din of the table resumed its normal level, and though Teddy wanted to talk to Hope, he would not be the first to speak up. Of course, his sister probably knew this, as the next thing she said was, in her usual blunt way, “What the hell are you doing here, Teddy?”

“I think it’s pretty obvious,” Teddy replied lowly, flashing a smile at Molly who had thrown him a confused glance.

“Yes, I know that,” Hope said, her tone implying her irritation. She always did have a bit of a hot temper. “I mean, what are you doing _here_? You told me that you were staying at your own flat.”

“No, I said that I didn’t want to come home for Christmas.”

“Semantics,” she told him, waving his answer off. “You know what you implied.”

“What is so hard to grasp about the fact that I just wanted some time away from home? We literally have the rest of our lives to see each other.” Teddy brushed a hand through his hair, frustration in his movements.

“Now you know that’s a bald-faced _lie_, Teddy, you just don’t want anything to do with her anymore,” Hope replied, turning to face him with her eyes ablaze. Her voice had gone louder with each word, and he chanced a nervous look at everyone around the table, noticing that people were taking note of their fight.

Teddy gave as genuine a smile as he could, and politely told them, “My apologies. We’ll be going outside now.”

Not giving any time for Hope to react, he dragged her outside with his coat in tow to just inside the threshold of the gates.

“Why are you here? What’s the real reason?” Hope crossed her arms.

“I didn’t feel safe anymore in that home, so excuse me if I wanted to avoid it,” he said, imitating her. “Why are you so insistent on me fucking staying with you guys? I’m happy to spend more time with you, Hope, but leave Auntie out of it. I want literally nothing to do with her.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she said, digging her palms into her eyes, and then began pacing around. “How can you say that? How do you say that and not feel any regret at all? She’s not the best—hardly, but she took us in and—” She broke off into a sob, and that was when it occurred to him that maybe the problem wasn’t him or his rebellion.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, softening his voice. It always made Hope lower her guards when he did that, if only the slightest. He only needed that much anyways.

She rubbed harshly at her eyes, and when she pulled her hands away, the rims of her eyes were red. “I… she told me it was my fault you didn’t come home, and she was threatening to kick me out of the home. I mean, I know she’s kidding, but… I’ve never been treated like this before…”

Teddy damn near yelled, ‘I told you so,’ because after so long, he finally wasn’t at the other end of his Aunties’ toxic behavior. It was a vile thing, his vindictiveness. “I’m sorry, you don’t deserve that,” he replied, stretching out a hand. She took it and her grip felt like she was holding onto a lifeline. “Is this why you said all those things to me?”

“Yeah,” she admitted, head hanging low. “I was angry and I said all those mean things—”

“Mean? Those things were outright horrible,” Teddy laughed, but there was nothing humorous about the situation. “You told me that Auntie was the only one that cared about me, and that just isn’t true. Actually, I’d much sooner believe that she’s the last person on earth that would care about me. She cared about you, in her own twisted way, but… but not me.” And even now, it hurt to know that. But he was trying to heal in his own way; not even four years back would he ever been able to come to terms with the reality of his Auntie’s abusive behavior. Only through dedication and intensive therapy did he do that.

“Yeah, I’m starting to realize that,” she told him, though she was looking anywhere but him. “Listen, I know I said it through text the other day, but I’m really sorry about what I said. That was really out of line.”

“I’m sorry for yelling at you,” Teddy apologized. In his own anger, he completely forgot about the fact that she happened to be a victim, the same as him. Yelling probably wasn’t the best solution for what he wanted. “But I’m not sure I can forgive you right now.”

Hope’s face fell, and he almost wanted to take back what he said. His pride corralled the urge. “Not to be rude, but that what you said really hurt. I’m not saying that we’re completely unsalvageable, but time might help. You’re still my sister, so I won’t like, shun you, or anything.”

“I can accept that. Thanks, Theodore Remus.”

That was a sign that things at least looking up for them, but it still made him click his tongue. “You're welcome, Hope Nymphadora.”

Hope made an indignant noise, and Teddy smiled at her, shrugging to say ‘you asked for it’.

“So,” Teddy began again, trying not to worry too much about what he was about to ask, “Auntie threatened to kick you out?”

“Yeah, but it’s alright, she just needs to calm down a bit.” Hope shrugged in an attempt to seem nonchalant, but the fact that she couldn’t keep her hands still told him of exactly how shaken up she was.

“And if she does?”

“Well, I didn’t ask in the most specific of terms, but Harry and Ginny are allowing me to stay if things ever get that bad,” she confessed.

It sort of shattered his heart that she even had to think this far. Auntie Bellatrix was really pushing the boundaries. While she never resorted to hitting them, there was a lot of emotional abuse. She had never hit them, no, but it always felt like she would, by the way that she sometimes threw things of theirs past them.

It was one of the reasons it was so hard to get anyone to believe him when he told people of what happened—because, where were the scars? Where were the bruises? Where was the imposing man they expected to see?

See, the scars were all there, only they were just underneath his skin, in the way he had to unlearn the many ways of hating himself, of the way he felt like he was worthless, of the way he felt like he didn’t deserve happiness or a good life.

It was all there. People chose not to see it.

“For how long though? We can’t impose on them too much,” Teddy fretted, a frown on his mouth. He began pacing. “Well, I guess you could live with me, but Jesus, the only job I have right now is the tutoring one, and that’s hardly stable and I can’t really get any good job with only a bachelor’s in physics—” He broke off to choke a down gasp, and shut his mouth for fear of crying.

Hope walked closer to him to wrap her arms around his neck. “I promise that it’s fine. I mean, I don’t know if you heard, but there’s this whole story of like the Potter’s trying to adopt us—”

“Yes, I heard,” he interjected. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, since they knew us and our parents, they pretty much consider us family, so they’re letting me stay as long as I need,” she explained.

“I… I never considered that,” Teddy whispered.

“Yes, well, being panicked does happen to activate the inner dumb bitch in all of us,” Hope told him matter-of-factly, all whilst nodding solemnly, and he had to laugh at that because it was true.

It was at that point that Victoire had come out to the front of the Burrow to question what was taking so long, because, _hello_, the Christmas gift exchange was happening in like ten minutes and you’re _still_ outside?

“Sorry,” Teddy offered her, an apologetic smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Victoire sighed mock-dramatically, “Okay, _fine_.” She looked to Hope beside him. “Is this your sister?” she asked, and then directed to her, holding a hand out, “Hi, I’m Victoire.”

Hope shook her hand, and introduced herself, “I’m Hope, but I think you already know. I know you vaguely because of Molly.”

“Right, you two became friends because you were in the same theatre troupe?”

“There’s only one theatre troupe for our school, but yes.” Hope’s smile had taken on an amused curve.

“Sorry, I’m not really that well-versed in the world of acting, forgive me.”

“_Okay_, I think we should go in now,” Teddy cut in, the coldness of the air just dawning on him. He may have thought ahead to bring a jacket, but certainly not smart enough to wear earmuffs, boots, or gloves.

Hopefully he doesn’t get sick, because that would not be great for the upcoming days of the break or his last semester of university.

As they walked in, Hope closed the door behind her, but then gasped.

Teddy turned slightly to see that his sister’s gaze was upwards, and he too looked up.

Jesus fucking Christ. It was mistletoe, and who would he be lucky enough to have by his side? Victoire. At Teddy’s astonishment, she followed his gaze and her mouth became a little ‘o’.

This had to be some kind of prank, because that was _not _there before.

In only a moment’s notice, the entire Weasley family’s gaze was on them, and it was George at the forefront, egging them on. _Damn it_, it was him that orchestrated this, wasn’t it? That explained the random ass intrusive question when they were first talking.

Teddy glared at him with as much acidity as he could muster, but George’s Cheshire grin was too contagious to keep up the ruse.

Realizing that there might be no realistic way out of this without people questioning the integrity of their relationship, Teddy shifted to face Victoire. “This kind of—um—blows, but are you okay with kissing me?”

“You’re sweet, Lupin,” she told him before caressing his cheek, and—wow, this was certainly not the kindness or softness he was expecting from her—not that he really expected it from anybody. She leaned down to place her lips on his, and he became aware of the fact that she was warm, warm, _warm_despite just being outside and that she had the distinct scent of morning dew—if that was even a thing.

He froze, because everything he knew about kissing people went out of his head and yet—he kissed back after a seconds’ worth of hesitation, eyes fluttering close.

Then she pulled away, right as Hope said with a sarcastic tone, “Well, as much as I like watching my brother making out with a girl, I’d rather vomit, thanks,” and then she pushed past them.

They were both met with a few wolf whistles, but nothing too bad, and Teddy released a sigh. He kind of missed the feeling of her lips on his, wishing that the moment lasted longer. Then he looked back at that thought, reflecting to himself that maybe he shouldn’t be feeling that way.

Damn it.

Teddy really needed to fucking talk to Victoire, because this whole fake dating thing was getting out of hand. Maybe Victoire didn’t feel the same way about him, but he’d really like to clear things up between them, at least a little.

But how much did that sentiment really mean? He’d been saying that for a while now, so it was possible that he was trying to avoid it. Victoire’s answer would probably be hard to hear regardless of the answer, but he supposed he understood why he’d be nervous about talking to her about it.

Sighing, Teddy took a seat next to Hope, and Victoire took a seat next to him, leaning closer to his side.

He tensed, and then relaxed in his place as the cacophony of voices grew in decibels, the family attempting to sort their whole mess of a gift pile.

A few minutes passed, and Teddy was surprised to see that there were two presents in front of him, and looked accusatorily at Victoire.

She smiled at him, raising her hands as if to say ‘guilty as charged’.

“I didn’t get you anything,” Teddy told her finally. “I wasn’t really expecting to get anything for anybody, so I didn’t really…”

“It's fine,” she dismissed easily. “I called you over on a whim, yes? You probably didn’t have time, yeah? No worries.”

“Yes, but this also means I’m indebted—”

“They’re called gifts for a reason, Teddy,” she scolded him, though the playful look in her eyes showed that she wasn’t serious.

“I only bought something for my sister,” he continued uselessly, and he looked over at Hope, who was currently wearing the BlackPink t-shirt he’d found a few weeks back. He’d also taken a black t-shirt and embroidered BTS’ logo where the left breast would be and had given it to her too, both handed to her the last time he’d visited home before Christmas break because he’d already made the decision to spend Christmas alone.

“If you really want to make it up to me though,” Victoire said, seemingly giving in, “you can always buy me a few coffees. I mean, I thought about my present for you, but I couldn’t go all out because I had like, _fifty _other people to buy presents for. That shit adds up.”

“Yeah, I understand that,” Teddy laughed, easing up.

“Well, come on, open it, open it,” she bugged, shaking his side with both of her hands.

“Alright, alright.” Teddy rolled his eyes, and gently pried her hands off of him. Gingerly, he took the bag first, peering in over the top, and saw an emerald fabric. He reached in, pulling it as it unfolded to reveal itself.

Well—it certainly wasn’t what he was expecting, but it certainly was a cognizant move on Victoire’s part, because it was a loose turtleneck, and though he may not have many of them, he absolutely _loved_ them. Not to mention, the light emerald knit was prettier out of the bag than it was in the bag.

“This is—beautiful? I love it a lot,” Teddy told her, not really knowing how to express his gratitude. Words were never his forte, but he did try for the people who mattered to him, even if it meant that he'd lose the majority of his vocabulary.

Victoire smiled proudly, and she definitely should have been. “Thank you—I remembered you told me that you were Slytherin back at our old high school—so I got you the green sweater. Just my luck that your eyes finish the aesthetic,” she informed him.

Teddy’s eyebrows rose. “You remember that? I told you that back when we first met, and that was about a year ago.”

Victoire shrugged. “I don’t know, good memory I guess? Open the next one now.” Her hands were drumming out a tune on the floors.

He chuckled at her impatience, and proceeded to rip off the wrapping paper, this time to see a light aqua colored journal emblazoned with map of the world in gold.

Opening it, his hands brushed through the fresh pages of the book, relishing in the soft crack of the spine. New books in general were just so nice.

Behind the book were a twelve pack of Pilot Juice pens, and wow—she really knew him well, because those were his favorite pens too.

“How do you know me so well?” he murmured, admiring the pens. He was a whore for a nice set of pens. It was fact.

He looked to her, and Victoire did a cute thing with her shoulders and grinned at him. She gave him a hug on his side, and he returned it as best as he could.

“I hope you don’t have a new journal because I got that thinking that your previous journal was all filled up with doodles and entries, so.”

“Are you _sure_ you didn’t spend too much on me?”

“No, most of these were on sale for Christmas, I got most of them half-price,” she told him shamelessly. “Listen, I’m still a bit of a broke college student…”

“Sorry if I’m being annoying, it’s just kind of habit to not be indebted to people…”

She patted his back. “All good. I like knowing I made someone happy, seriously, giving people gifts is the best thing.”

"You’re very generous,” he commented, and in response, Victoire placed her head on his shoulder and he adjusted his shoulder to make her comfortable.

Contentedly, Teddy swept his gaze over the crowd, watching as people hugged each other or laughed with each other. He caught Molly hugging an older man with ink black hair and emerald eyes.

Honestly, if he had green eyes, not grey, it was possible that they could be brothers.

Flitting his gaze over to Hope, he caught her staring at him with a questioning look.

Teddy smiled at her, and gestured for her to come to him, and she scooted closer.

Hope looked between Victoire on his shoulder and then him for a few moments. Finally, she told him accusatorily, “I could have sworn that you told me that you and Victoire were friends…”

Teddy avoided her eyes. “Well, I can’t really hide it from you anymore.”

“I mean I thought that kiss was just something awkward between two friends, but I couldn’t have guessed this. I thought you weren’t interested in relationships?”

“Doesn’t almost everyone think that until they meet the right person?” Teddy asked her thoughtlessly.

Victoire made a noise between a snort and a laugh. Lifting her head off her shoulder, she teased, “That’s possibly the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said.”

“Yes, and?”

Hope made an action of retching. “Gross. Leave room, God.”

Teddy rolled his eyes, and ruffled her hair. She ducked down with an indignant scream of, “Hey,” and straightened her hair.

“What is there to fix? Your hair practically never tangles and you don’t even bother to brush your hair every day.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Hope huffed, apparently having satisfactorily fixed her hair back to its previous state. “Jesus. When did you two meet anyways, and when did you two get together?”

“We met around a year back, and we got together two months ago…?” Teddy looked at Victoire for answer. Maybe he looked like a bad boyfriend to Hope, but in truth they’d never hashed out the specificities of their relationship. Sure, they both attempted to keep it as organic as possible, but some things had to meet up with a timeline that took away from it.

“Yeah, you don’t remember?”

“I think we’ve already established that I have a shit memory, so.”

Hope cut across them. “_Okay_, well. I hope you treat each other well, you both deserve it.” Then she snuggled into his side as people shifted around on the living room floor, putting down blankets and pillows to lie down.

“Are we watching a movie or something?”

“Home Alone, I think,” Hope yawned to him, sliding down to lie in his lap. When he frowned disapprovingly down at her, she gave him the most angelic smile, and he let it go with a sigh.

In an attempt to make himself comfortable, he leaned his head on Victoire’s head.

Today had to be the rockiest Christmas of his life, but at least the payoff was worth it.


	4. truly beautiful in some moments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next day, the Delacour-Weasleys and Teddy were all safely back home at Shell Cottage.
> 
> Warning: Talks of emotional abuse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a wild ride, tbh. a lot of this chapter was my mind writing on coffee and extreme exhaustion. which is how i learned the fact that i really did live my life not knowing how many bras there truly are in this world. 
> 
> and uh. this would be the last chapter of this tiny-not-so-tiny fic. and i gotta say, i really don't know how to end my fics, probably because i've never finished a fic before now.
> 
> also, this fic was also pretty much not supposed to exist, but then it did because i had the idea for three months and decided i wouldn't get to it. and then i ended up finishing it in a week. i also didn't like teddy/victoire before so uh
> 
> i'm going to end this author's note for now.

The next day, the Delacour-Weasleys and Teddy were safely back home at Shell Cottage. With Christmas day being over, there was not much else to do except to wait for the party on New Year’s Eve the Potter’s were hosting, which was a few days away.

These few days always managed to literally be nothing, because the days between Christmas and New Year’s seemed to not really fall into any distinction of time. Did anyone really exist?

Those few days were a little hard to live, if Teddy was being honest. Even with the company of five other people, he felt empty. Bored, maybe?

He didn’t know what it was. Without something to look forward to, he didn’t really know what to do with himself. There were his backups, naturally, but he’d gone through all of his favorite haunts at least three times each on his phone, and none of them were updated, and if they had, it was nothing interesting.

This feeling was not foreign to him, though every time it occurred, it frustrated him to no end like the first time he felt this way. It was just—it was such an _asinine_ feeling, like, he certainly had plenty of things to do, like take a walk on the beach, read one of the many books he brought, draw in his sketchbook, write away in his notebook—_plenty of things_. But none of them were worth doing, and the things that he did deem worth doing were uninteresting.

He’d been cycling through the same three apps for past hour, and the music that helped him in these times just didn’t.

To that, all he had to say was: _what the fuck? _

Teddy wanted to text his friends or _something_, but he felt like that he’d been out of touch with them a tad too long for them to actually care about him.

He let out a loud and prolonged sigh, and moved on the couch he was sitting on to lie down, a little more than irritated.

For a few hours he watched the house live, the way that Bill moved around in his office space out of the corner of his eye, the way the cotton curtains swayed gently in the wind from the open window—seriously, it was winter, why was the window open?—Minnie sitting in the rocking chair giggling to herself while watching her phone, and Fleur flipping through the pages of her book. Yes, it was that quiet in this home.

Sure it occupied him for a while, but it was in precisely these moments that he wished he could disappear out of existence without anyone ever knowing until the next exciting thing happened.

Maybe this was why he hated the holidays so much; without something to do—something to keep him busy like university _always_ did without fail—his mind withdrew into itself, unsure of what to do.

A while later, Victoire had come down, and made herself comfortable on the seat his legs occupied, draping herself over them. She didn’t speak to him, only humming a nondescript song to herself. It could have been hours or only seconds. Hopefully it was the former—he truly wanted this day to be over.

“Hey, what time is it?” Teddy asked finally, not moving even a centimeter from his spot.

“About ten to twelve.”

Damn it. It had only been _twenty minutes_ since he lied down. “Why’re you here?”

“My room was getting boring. I’ve been staring at my Red Velvet poster for about an hour and Yeri started looking a little funny.”

Teddy only hummed for an answer, but Victoire continued, “Hey, so can I talk to you?”

“Always,” he replied immediately, and he shifted his body to sit up properly, almost kicking Victoire out of the couch in the process. Leaning closer, he added in a lower voice, taking care that her family didn’t hear, “But are you sure you want to talk about it _here_?”

“What do you mean—oh.” Victoire glanced her family, currently all doing their own thing. “I mean… I don’t really care? They won’t hold it against me, but thanks for asking.”

Teddy nodded, surprised. He hated talking about any of his personal matters to his Auntie; she almost always gave a side of derision or guilt trips or both, depending on the mood she was in. Usually he gave her throwaway or made up stories to tide over her curiosity of his life, and it worked. Most of the time, at least.

It was a good thing that Victoire could speak freely in front of her family without the fear of being judged. An amazing thing.

“Okay, so, is it weird that I feel really bored right now? Like, bored wouldn’t be the right word, but I don’t know how else to describe it. There’s so much to do… but I just don’t want to do it?”

Teddy let out a snort. What were the chances that she’d come to him with the same problem he was afflicted with?

“I know perfectly well what you’re talking about,” he explained when she looked at him disappointedly. “I don’t really have a name for it either. Maybe restlessness? I haven’t been able to stop myself from flipping through the same three apps, or whatever.”

“Hm. Maybe we’re just easily bored,” Victoire laughed. “We should really go do something.”

Teddy shrugged. That could be it, but he had a track record for this. Who knew what it could be?

“Do you have any ideas?” she asked when he didn’t answer.

Sheepishly, he grinned at her. “I’m sorry, I’m just not in it today. I don’t really feel like doing anything right now.”

“That’s okay,” Victoire said with a shrug. “I get like that too.” She put slung one of her arms around his shoulders, and Teddy took that as invitation to lie down on her shoulder.

Teddy was still bored, and he was still frustrated. Victoire’s presence didn’t change that at all, which was unfortunate, but it was too much to expect out of any person, let alone her, but he could take comfort in the fact that he wasn’t alone in this.

A silence passed over them, but it didn’t last long, as Victoire started to speak once again. Maybe she hated the quiet or something. Understandable. He hated it too, but he’d gotten used to it over the years.

“Did you know? I read this book, I think it was called _The Chase_, or something, and God. This is the first time I’ve ever genuinely wanted to burn a book.”

“Your book reviews are always stellar, and please, keep going,” Teddy encouraged, a smile forming on his face.

Victoire beamed at him, and a moment later she got up, making him frown. She grabbed his hand, pulling him along with her. “Actually, I think I have a copy that borrowed off of Molly, and it’s got some _great_ lines off of it that we _have _to do a dramatic reading of.”

Teddy flopped on the bed face down, releasing a big sigh. The sheets were incredibly cool on his skin, and it felt kind of nice. Victoire was basically a space heater.

“Anyways, I think this is the book,” she announced, gesturing for him to move over. Teddy looked, and the cover was pretty, alluring enough to catch his eye to buy it. If Victoire was correct, then this book was the personification of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover.’ It goes both ways.

“It’s a pretty cliché book. Like it’s about a high school girl, and she’s in year twelve right? She meets a boy who’s a year thirteen, and uh. This book is a lot. Like, _a lot_, a lot.”

“Oh,” Teddy said, already disparaged. The premise was a little outdated, and he often avoided these specific types of books. Sure, they could be done well, but they rarely are.

“Yeah, so it’s about that stereotypical girl that thinks she’s nothing much, but is somehow simultaneously also really pretty, like Victoria’s Secret model pretty. Which is like. Probable I guess for some, but nearly every young adult book does this. It’s kind of tiring,” she sighed to him, looking at him for agreement.

Teddy nodded at her, smiling. He supposed he agreed with that.

“It’s pretty much like where the fall in love blah blah blah, that’s not the interesting part,” she continued. She flipped through her book absentmindedly. “And, ugh. It basically reeked of every unhealthy behavior you shouldn’t have in a relationship. It was just? Really bad? I think one of the worst offenses of this was the way that the two fought over and over again, and _fuck_, the girl was so annoying. She always did this thing where she always made her boyfriend apologize for shit that he didn’t even do? And she always went through his phone to the point that he just gave up on keeping a pass lock on it?”

He made a face, and Victoire grinned triumphantly. “I’m going to take that as a victory because a few friends of mine told me that I was crazy, and I was like, yeah, fuck you. I don’t know. I’d personally hate it if my girlfriend, or boyfriend I guess, took my phone to look through it. I may not have anything to hide, but I do have personal things of friends that I need to keep secure.”

“No, I understand. I’d hate it if my partner did that,” Teddy assured her. He laughed a little. “I actually, uh, dealt with that for a long time too. I mean, not by my partner, but by my aunt. She took my phone whenever she wanted to and looked through my social media and my notes and my texts. I know a lot of people think it’s harmless, but I think it’s just because the effects don’t show up until you’re in it deep. Like, I didn’t realize for the longest time that a lot of my friendships… well, I’m not sure. It’s just that we weren’t as close as we could’ve been, purely because we couldn’t talk to each other. Obviously, it’s gotten better since then since I’m out of my Auntie’s hands, but.” He shrugged, and chanced a look at her. The way she was looking at him made him squirm in his spot, though not necessarily uncomfortably.

Victoire was wide eyed and it was easy to interpret the overwhelming concern on her face, and it wasn’t intermingled with the pity he often saw.

Perhaps in the beginning he judged her too harshly in the beginning, about the way people decided not to help him, and how he thought she was more of the same.

Knowing a person for a year could teach someone a lot, and it was clear to Teddy that she was not it. She can’t help him now since he was mostly safe, and his sister could handle herself, but it was the sentiment of wanting to help that mattered, and it was also that sentiment that fueled, hopefully, action.

“So, I think what would be the icing on the cake was if this was framed as a healthy relationship,” he told her, straightening his spine and crisscrossing his legs. “Was it?”

Victoire blinked, apparently not expecting the abrupt change in direction. Maybe she wanted to talk more about it, but he didn’t want to potentially ruin what would be such an interesting conversation with his own kind of disheartening experiences.

“I—um. Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of that, like there’s this specific quote that angers me—I think it went something like, ‘You two are so cute, like actual couple goals,’ and. I have so much to say about that.” She buried her face in her hands, sighing loudly. “First of all, that’s a fucking line, like a legitimate line, and second, the irony is that the two were in this like, silent treatment thing? She was outright ignoring her boyfriend, who was practically begging, _begging_, for her to talk to him.”

Teddy for a moment was speechless, opening and closing his mouth multiple times before he could formulate any words. “I, um. Do people know that the silent treatment is at worst abuse, and at best manipulative punishment? I mean, yeah, I get not wanting to talk to your partner, but your anger shouldn’t result in you pulling shit like that.”

She flopped dramatically back on her bedframe. “God, I know _right_? Are we sure that this is what we want to teach the people? It’s such a shitty thing to do in general, to people you love especially. Isn’t the whole point of a relationship to talk to each other and try to figure out what the hell is wrong and then like, take further action if you can’t resolve it on your own? And besides, why would someone willingly subject someone else to that? Why decide to put them through that emotional rollercoaster of wondering why the other wasn’t talking to them? The silent treatment is shit! There are only so few situations where it’s justifiable, but so rarely does it ever happen. So there, I said it, though I’d argue that it’s not even a hot take.” Victoire ended her spiel on an aggressive note, looking frazzled. Her tight curls seemed to only add to her frazzled state.

Teddy looked at her, pulling a small smile throughout her rant. He wasn’t really sure about how passionate she was about the subject, but regardless, he _loved_ it when people talked like that, because it almost turned them into a different person. Victoire was angry about the injustice of the way people thought they were entitled to treat others, which was exactly what made her look lively and brighter. She was always lively and bright, but this only served to enhance her.

_God_, he wanted to kiss her so bad.

Victoire finally looked at him, wide-eyed, but her expression transformed immediately into a mix of flustered confusion. Almost self-consciously, she started brushing through her hair, asking him, “Is there something in my teeth? Is my hair looking weird or? Is it something else entirely?”

He blinked once, twice. “No—no, not at all. Sorry,” he apologized, offering her a sheepish smile.

“Oh… okay.” Victoire looked oddly disappointed, but she went on anyway, relaying the book to him.

Strangely enough, Teddy couldn’t stop thinking about her throughout the rest of her rant. Trying to pull his attention from noticing her every mannerism was indeed increasingly difficult, as he was failing spectacularly.

How was it that she was simply a passing presence in his life only a mere three months ago, and now had become so lovely in his eyes? Was it a fluke? Was it infatuation?

The thought that it might be made him deflate, because he genuinely did like her.

Instead of dwelling on too much on it like he wanted to, he leaned back on the bedframe and resolved himself to listening to the ramblings of Victoire.

—

The rest of the days passed with the same sort of apathy Teddy had been afflicted with the day after Christmas, but luckily with that, the Potter’s New Year’s Eve party held in their home had also arrived.

On the evening of, Victoire didn’t exactly work herself up into a frenzy, but it was clear that she was a little distressed.

Teddy supposed he understood. For men in general, there wasn’t a lot of hassle in getting ready; just look clean shaven and wear a nice suit or something and you might be done. If women wanted to dress up, there was indeed just too much to choose from. Just in the realm of makeup itself there was aplenty.

The fact honestly stressed him out a little, for it would send his indecisive brain into a spiral. He would’ve liked to work with makeup, but like with any art, it took a certain level of skill of which he did not have.

At least he thought so.

“Victoire,” Teddy sighed from his spot at the edge of her room, watching Victoire switch back and forth between which of the dresses she should wear. Apparently the dress she bought now didn’t look as good. “Is everything okay? Do you need help choosing?”

She gave him a frazzled look, glanced back at the dresses she was considering wearing, and then back to him. Resigned, she answered, “Yeah that would probably help.”

“So, what are your options?”

Victoire swept her arm the length of her bed, and when he looked there were probably about ten dresses. It looked like a boutique threw up, though he did have to say, Victoire had a sense of style. Maybe he had one, but rarely did he ever feel like using it.

“You like all of them right?”

“Duh.”

“So can you choose like five dresses?”

Skeptically, slowly, she did.

Teddy looked at the five in question, and then picked up two of them that he liked that probably would be appropriate for the occasion, and then held each one up to Victoire, gauging what would flatter her the most. To be honest, she’d probably look good in anything, but that was exactly why he had to think over his choice.

After a few more moments of deliberation, he announced decisively that she should wear the emerald green one.

“This one? Really?”

“Either that or you go back to your torture.”

“Fair enough,” she replied, and then bounded off to the bathroom not far away. She came back out and gestured for help to lace up the back.

Teddy tried to tamp down the flush of his cheeks, but it was whatever, Victoire wasn’t looking.

He laced up the straps deftly, and what a strange thing to notice that the dress was a low back. And to that he only had one question.

“Can I ask you kind of a random question?”

Victoire let out a noise between a snort and a laugh. “When don’t you ask me a random question at any given moment?”

He rolled his eyes. “So, this back is, like, really low right? What do you wear when you don’t want your bra showing?”

“Well there are strapless nude bras that blend really well into your skin, bras with clear straps, wear a sticky bra, or you can just say fuck it and not wear anything,” she answered, and moved to her small vanity to sort through the makeup she needed. “What color eyeshadow should I wear?”

“I mean, go natural I guess?”

Victoire hummed. “So how long has that question been on your mind?”

It was Teddy’s turn to laugh. “Um. For a while now. I watch a lot of sewing YouTubers, and yeah, the dresses they make are pretty, but I’ve always wondered about the dresses that are, well, like the one you’re wearing.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I swear making clothes is like magic. Maybe I’d pick up the hobby one day, I mean, I already know how to embroider.”

“Do it! I think it’d be a cool hobby, to make clothes of your own. You can finally have clothes that fit you perfectly. And when you become a famous fashion designer, I can be your model,” Victoire said with a flourish. She grinned at him.

“I’m flattered that you think I’ll become famous.”

“Hey, it could happen.”

“Yes, because I’m such an ar–_teeste_,” he said with a horrible accent.

“As someone who’s French, I’m offended,” she answered, throwing him a disparaging look. Looking closely in the mirror, she declared, “I think I’m done!”

“Perfect.” Teddy smiled at her.

Victoire beamed at him and made her way downstairs, and Teddy followed suit.

Fleur was waiting downstairs. She smiled at them, and commented, “Did you two mean to match?”

“Oh, are we?” Victoire asked, and Teddy glanced down at himself. “Happy accident, I suppose.”

“Well, you both look charming.” She gave them another smile, and then promptly contradicted herself when she yelled in the general direction of where her other children were in an attempt to corral them down.

Teddy disguised his laugh with a cough.

One boisterous car ride later (mostly a courtesy of Minnie and Louis), the family arrived at the Potter’s home, which was probably better called a mansion. Maybe not that big, but it was up there.

“Um, wow,” Teddy murmured to Victoire. “So, are they rich or something?”

“Yeah, it’s all pretty much old money though,” she replied, clearly not as awed as he was. Which was fair, considering that she probably interacted with the Potters a lot.

When they entered, they were greeted by the host, Ginny Weasley-Potter herself, apparently. Her interactions with Fleur were more on the polite side, like both Fleur and Ginny were beating the bush around each other. Teddy was a little curious, but he was pulled out of his thoughts with Ginny talking to him. “Hello,” she said, considerably nicer. “I hear you’re the Teddy Lupin that my goddaughter is dating.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of you as well,” Teddy replied, a placid smile on his face. Clearly he did know about his relationship with Ginny Weasley-Potter, but it was awkward because of the amount of time that had passed between now and then. How do you talk to someone like that? What do you need to do?

“I’m flattered. I hope you’re good for her,” Ginny told him, now a more critical glint in her eye, and maybe even the bravest person would have quivered at that, but Teddy quite frankly just didn’t know her well enough to consider her an intimidating woman.

“I hope so too,” he replied, still placid. Then he remembered about what Hope told him. Managing a genuinely grateful smile, he told her, “Thank you, by the way—my sister tells me that you’re willing to give her someplace to stay. For, well, I think you know.”

Visibly, Ginny softened at that. “Not a problem at all—I have more space in this home than I know what to do with, even if my Albus uses every nook and cranny for his pets.” She paused, and Teddy sensed that the conversation might be over, but she added in a moment later, “You’re free to stay here too, you know. After university. You graduate this year—next year? Yes, next year.”

“Um, no, that’s not—”

Ginny waved him off dismissively. “Like I said, I have more space than I know what to do with. You’re more than welcome to stay here, and besides, hopefully you’ll get to meet my husband and children.”

“And they would be…?”

The emotions that flitted across her face were many. First came a blank expression, then the slightest shred of hurt mixed with something else, then she turned completely impassive.

What would she have to be hurt for? Did he say something wrong?

Ginny blinked, and the hostess smile was back. “Ah, well, there’s Harry Potter, my husband, and then there’s James, Albus, and Lily, my children. All of them hell raisers.” She put on a thoughtful look. “I am too, if I’m being honest. I’m pretty sure your Hope is friends with James, but she’s been telling me that she’s told me that she’s too old for him. She’s only like, what, three months older?”

“Yes, that’s my Hope,” he said, and then decided maybe he shouldn’t have said ‘my Hope,’ that was just kind of weird terminology to use especially when he was her brother. Definitely weird.

“Well, I’ll let you go now,” Ginny announced, and patted his shoulder. “Please, keep in touch.” Then she whirled away, and Teddy was left with himself.

He sighed, and looked around to see any people he recognized. Recognizing Molly, Victoire, and Ellie, weirdly enough, he pushed through the crowd. Ellie smiled at him. “Hi! I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Well, I’m with Victoire, so.”

Ellie’s gaze flitted between the two of them questioningly. “Oh, are you two a thing?”

Teddy blinked at her, unsure of where to go from here. Victoire was much more assured though. “Yeah, we are.”

Ellie nodded, and then surprisingly did not interrogate them further. He would’ve thought that she would have been more curious, or perhaps hurt for not telling her. But it was whatever. Their lives were not the center of everyone’s lives, and he should be grateful that.

Teddy grabbed a flute of champagne, and then gave the glass in his hand a look. Weren’t there kids younger than eighteen here?

Victoire seemed to understand the unasked question, and said a bit randomly, “The kids are sanctioned off to another room with Auntie Luna watching over them. She loves watching over them, for some reason. They’re absolute little gremlins.”

Teddy smiled at her as an answer, and then tuned into something Molly was saying. “You know, it’s kind of weird, like there are just certain names that don’t really belong to babies. Like can you imagine just looking at your newborn child and deciding to name it some fuckin’ name like _Ched_ or _Eugene _or something? Fucking wild. I don’t know man, there’s just something really weird about that.”

He laughed, taking a sip from his glass. “No, yeah, I understand. I’d never consider naming child something like Margaret or Richard—sorry Ellie—or even Victoria or Agatha.” Ellie swatted at him gently.

Victoire chose to pipe up at this. “I’m pretty sure Victoria is just an old name, not an old people name.”

Teddy thought on this for a second. “Yeah. I was just about to say that I’m willing to compromise on Victoria and Agatha. Victoria because it’s an okay name, but Agatha because it belongs to both my favorite author and my favorite Pokémon Elite member.”

“Why do you have a favorite Elite member?”

“Why _not_ have a favorite Elite member?” he posed with a raised eyebrow.

Ellie shrugged. “Fair, I guess.”

“Hey, I’m pretty sure that there’s a free room upstairs that we can use if you guys don’t want to stay in the crowd,” Victoire said suddenly.

They all chorused out resounding agreements, and followed Victoire up as she led them up. Teddy said hi to a few people that he recognized, and immediately took a seat on the plush rug that was next to the wall, and Ellie and Victoire sat in front of him.

Molly left for some reason or another, and Ellie continued off the previous conversation. “So, do you still play Pokémon, Teddy? I remember seeing some games laying around the flat, but in retrospect, some of those copies may have been mine.”

“Duh. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky is absolutely _superior._”

“_What_? No, absolutely not, it was the Explorers of Darkness!”

“Yeah, okay, that’s what the people who _haven’t _played say. Jealous you couldn’t have Sky like you wanted?” Teddy gave her a teasing smirk.

“Uh, guys, I’m pretty sure there’s no difference,” Victoire butted in, giving them strange looks.

“No, but there absolutely is!” Ellie said, bouncing in her spot. “Sky has this whole other plotline after the main one, while Darkness just stopped at the main. I thought that was better because it wrapped everything nicely!”

“Um, I’m pretty sure you just stated the exact reason why Sky was better,” Teddy pointed out. “Besides, what kid worries about the story? They probably just want more of the game to play.”

Ellie pouted at him. “I did…”

Teddy rolled his eyes good naturedly just as Molly came back, holding an insurmountable amount of food. “I come carrying sustenance. And alcohol.”

“How did you…”

“Didn’t take much convincing actually,” Molly informed them all. “There was a lot of food there anyways, I barely made a dent.”

“Oh, well, that’s good,” Victoire told her. “Any more champagne? Or any wine?”

“Damn, you really like your alcohol,” Molly said. “But yes, I brought like three bottles.”

“It’s New Year’s, I rarely drink, let me live.” She reached for a bottle, and poured into her cup.

After that, pretty much everything went downhill. Or uphill, depending on the way you see it. The conversation flowed easily, switching from topic to topic, and two girls named Radhika Longbottom and Soon-ok Chang had made their way up too, apparently in search of bathrooms, but ended up here.

It was whatever, since Teddy had really taken a liking to them. Soon-ok was a bit of badmouth, but her stories were to live for. Or maybe that was the drunken haze. He wasn’t really sure. Sure, he’d only had like two glasses of champagne, but there was also the fact he didn’t know whether he could take his alcohol or was a complete lightweight.

Well, Teddy would find out tomorrow, probably.

Either way, Soon-ok was _hella_ funny, a fact that he immensely grateful for. Currently she was bitching about some girl in her class. “_God_, she’s such a little bitch. I mean like, if she had shut her mouth, I’d probably like her a lot more than I do right now. Like, once, she asked me what my favorite color was, and I answered green, right? And her bitchass told me that green wasn’t a color! _Green wasn’t a color!_”

The entire group burst into a mix of laughter and giggles, especially Teddy. Who actually had the audacity to believe that green of all things wasn’t a color? How did someone come to believe that? Did the color green not exist in their mind? If so, what did they actually call the color green when they see it, then?

“That’s funny as fuck,” Radhika managed to get out through her laughing, “and I’m putting that in my Instagram bio, oh my god.”

“Who is this dude? She sounds really familiar,” Molly asked, tipping her glass towards Soon-ok. Teddy worried a little because it looked like the red wine was about to spill over onto her very nice white dress.

“It’s some girl named Augusta—”

“Oh my god I totally know her! She’s in my fucking creative writing class,” Molly exclaimed. “I’m definitely with you on not liking her. Like we were talking about ourselves right, cause we didn’t have much else to do right? So I was like yeah, I’m half-Japanese from my mum’s side, and she squealed to me about how she knew Japanese too, which is like, yeah, whatever, but then she goes on to say we could be Japanese together. And I’m like… bitch.”

“…What? I mean technically she could be part Japanese too?” Victoire said, a thoughtful expression on her face.

“Oh, did I forgot to say? She told me that she’s one hundred percent white as fuck.”

There was a chorus of groans, but Victoire still seemed to be confused. “I don’t get it, she thinks she’s Japanese because she also speaks Japanese?” No one answered her, and she said shrilly, “Wait you guys, I’m not getting it, guys, please. For the love of god.”

“That’s so stupid,” Teddy said once recovering from their laughter. “How the fuck?”

“I mean, I think to be Japanese you need to some Japanese blood in you? I think? God, I’m too tired to think right now,” Ellie said, with a sigh. Then, she commented, “Whoa, Teddy might be really drunk,” just as Teddy fell further into a stream of giggles.

Victoire grinned at him sideways, probably just as drunk as him, and promptly cuddled into his side. Instinctively, Teddy pulled her closer, and he swore he felt her lips brushed against his neck. Maybe he had too many drinks.

Soon-ok groaned at them. “No need to brag like that in front of us, we get it, you’re dating. As if that wasn’t already obvious.”

Teddy could only manage another giggle at her. Suddenly there was a lot in his mind that he couldn’t really process, but whatever, it was a party, let loose, go crazy and all that.

A hush fell over them, and Radhika and Soon-ok began to murmur between themselves. Molly seemed to be thinking about something very deeply, and Ellie was yawning.

Faintly, he heard the door open, and he looked up to see Ginny. She seemed to be disapproving of the tipsy state of them all, but brushed it off to tell them, “It’s five minutes to midnight, do you guys want to come down?”

There was a quiet moment between all of them, and then slowly went downstairs, falling away from each other.

Teddy stayed with Victoire, holding onto her hand.

The crowd began to chant, counting down from ten, and Teddy joined in. He saw from the corner of his eye that Victoire was looking at him fondly, and he turned to beam at her.

Victoire blinked and abruptly, he heard everyone around him scream Happy New Year, and—perhaps he was a lightweight, because the next thing he decided to do was press his lips to hers, one arm ghosting around her waist, the other wrapping around her neck to pull her closer. For a frightening half of a second, there was no response from her, and then Victoire seemed to gather her wit and kissed him back just as fiercely.

It was hardly perfect, but Teddy never really felt this good before, a fire blazing in him that threatened to burn him to ashes. This was far, _far_ different from the one they shared under the mistletoe on Christmas; compared to this, that had only felt like a mere peck.

She pulled away first, a breathless laugh escaping her, and impulsively, he said, “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“You can do it again, for all I care,” she said, smiling down at him.

“I might take you up on that offer,” he responded. He sounded like he had stars in his eyes, and honestly, he probably did.

“Should we find try to find my family?” Victoire asked.

“Um, yeah, probably,” Teddy replied, taking her hand in his again.

—

The arrival of the next morning saw Teddy waking up in his assigned guest room highly puzzled. How did he manage to change out of his clothes into pajamas, and then get himself into his own bed? He more expected to find himself in Victoire’s bed and then subsequently freak the fuck out wondering if they had sex or something.

He’d like to think that his decisions wouldn’t be that bad, but alcohol managed to get out the worst in everyone.

Teddy shifted out of his bed slowly, taking care to not irritate the consistent thumping in his head.

After brushing his teeth, and freshening up, he decided to go to the dining room. Fleur and Bill were already there, with Fleur quietly reading her book, and Bill in the kitchen.

As Teddy pulled out his chair (wincing at the screeching noise of the wooden chair against the floor), Bill greeted him loudly, “Good morning Teddy.”

He couldn’t tell whether it was his brain amplifying Bill’s voice, or whether it was purposeful. A glance towards Bill told Teddy that it was the latter.

“You’re doing this to torture me,” Teddy grumbled to him, sitting down.

“Well, I can’t scold you for drinking,” Bill replied, the grin on his face widening.

“Don’t make a joke of him,” Fleur chastised mildly, not taking her eyes off her book. Teddy saw a smile creep up on her face though, and damn, were they in this together?

Teddy shook his head, rested his head on top of the table.

“Did you go someplace secluded yesterday?” Fleur asked of him. “I didn’t see you around much yesterday.”

“Ah, yeah, I went upstairs with Victoire and a few of her other friends.”

“Sounds like you had fun.”

“I did.”

Waiting for breakfast, Teddy was able to admire that the dining room was light and airy, brightly lit from the sun outside. For his tired eyes, this was a calming sight for him, and he relaxed in his seat, feeling better than he did before.

The Shell Cottage was truly beautiful, in some moments.

The sun rose higher in the sky, and the home began to wake up too, as Minnie and Louis and Victoire came down one by one.

The room became livelier as all of them made conversation, and Minnie and Louis carried the conversation as usual, talking in their usual tone of voice.

For poor Victoire, this seemed to be too much to bear, as she winced every so often, rubbing her temples.

“Drank too much?” Teddy asked teasingly. He did _not_ want to be one of those people that acted like nothing happened the night before. Because how dumb would that be?

Victoire glowered at him, a slight pout on her lips. “I’m doing great, thanks for asking.”

“Remember much?” he asked, poking at piece of waffle and berry.

“Most things.”

“Good.”

“You’re being really ominous, you know.” She gave him a suspicious look.

Teddy shrugged, with an innocent smile. He tuned in to what Minnie was saying. “—and at school, there was this kid who called me out into the hall during detention, and I was witness to these two kids running at each other to do this epic high five, but they said they only called me out to say that no one was going to believe me. It was still funny though.”

And the affair continued, until Teddy got up to put away his dishes, and as everyone else left to do their own thing, he held Victoire back. “Can we talk? About yesterday?”

Victoire didn’t respond, and he wondered distantly whether this had to do with the fact that she drank a bit more than he did.

Inaudibly, he sighed. “Victoire, please don’t mistake me for a patient... man.” The word sounded a little weird on his tongue, even if the label was right for him

She snorted. Clearly she thought the same. “Yes, we can talk. Want to go for a walk?”

Teddy frowned at that. He would have to dress warm for the occasion, and that was a hassle. “Yeah, okay.”

As they left, Victoire shouted a goodbye, telling them of their whereabouts.

Teddy saw the cobbled path stretch out for a good bit, once again charmed by the garden in front of the house. There were a few bright red amaryllis that he saw.

“So, um. We kissed yesterday,” he began, a small quaver in his voice. He was the one that consistently thought about talking their shit out, and now he was the one that nervous. How rich of him.

“That we did,” she agreed.

“I wanted to apologize.” Teddy realized that he never really asked about whether she wanted to be kissed or not. Even if she responded easily enough, it kind of unsettled him a bit. He wouldn’t like that, would he? “I’m sorry for not asking for your permission yesterday. I know it sounds dumb and all because I fully recall that you were just as enthusiastic—”

There was a sudden peal of laughter that rung in the air, and noticed that they were at the shore. It was colder here.

“You’re so sweet, Teddy, have you realized that?”

“So I’ve been told by you.”

“I understand _why_ you’re apologizing, and as you said, I liked it, so I don’t think there’s any need to apologize. But thank you.” Victoire sat down on the sand, and Teddy hesitated. That was a lot of sand.

“So then, there is the fact that. Um. We did happen to kiss. And we didn’t really have to.”

Victoire blinked. “Yes.”

He huffed. It was hard to make conversation when you just didn’t expand on that. “I was wondering what that meant? I just want to be on the same page. Because the page that I’m on says that I like you, and I think that you like me, because why else would you do all the extra shit even when your family wasn’t—”

“Teddy!”

Victoire placed her hands on his shoulders, and it was Teddy’s turn to blink up at her. “Yes?”

“About time you realized.”

He blanked for a moment, processing what she said. Then he laughed. “_What_?”

“I mean, how long does it take? I couldn’t have been more obvious!”

“I thought _you_ were going to talk to me! I had some idea, but I was like wondering when you were going to bring it up, but then you forced my hand—” Teddy stopped to breathe. “I don’t know. I liked you lot, but then I wondered about why you’d start this whole fake relationship thing. We could have been dating for real, you know.”

Victoire considered this. “I… I’m sorry. For making you wonder like that, I mean. That wasn’t my intention at all. I actually didn’t… I didn’t know how I felt about you before the break, and I only realized when we, uh, talked about that book.”

He gave her a strange look. “Not the day we kissed under the mistletoe? That didn’t ring a bell for you?”

“What can I say? I was dumbass in denial. Besides, I realized then that I really enjoyed talking to you.” 

“Okay, that’s fair. But that still doesn’t explain all the flirting before that day, though.”

“I was flirting with you, Teddy, because I thought it’d be cute to make you blush. Like I said, still in denial.” Victoire turned to look at him, and a grin appeared. “See? Like that. You’re very cute, you know.”

Teddy’s blush worsened, and damn it, this was exactly what he didn’t want. Releasing a sigh, he asked, “So you like me?”

“Yeah.” She looked at him expectantly, and he realized what she wanted him to ask, but a small butterfly made a home in his stomach. Which was unexpected, since everything was out in the open now. Would she say no? That was possible, right? She could just say that she didn’t want to date now and leave him hanging. That could happen.

He chewed on his lip, and stopped walking. Victoire stopped in front of him. “You don’t have to overthink this, you know.”

Teddy crossed his arms. “Okay, then. Will you go out with me?”

“No—”

“Vicky, what—”

“I’m kidding,” she laughed to him. “Yes, I’ll go out with you.”

“Thank god, I was about to cry.” Teddy pouted.

“Oh god, I’m hungover, I don’t think I would’ve been able to comfort you.”

“Charming. So, do we tell your parents?”

“Oh, _god no_. We’ll just pretend that we’ve been dating the whole time. Do you know that my mother will yell my ear off? I don’t need that today, or any day, really.” Victoire looked heavenward, and clasped her hands.

“Imagine if they already knew, though.” It was certainly possible. They weren’t exactly subtle about the fact they were surprised when Bill mentioned they were going to the Burrow because her extended family wanted to meet Victoire’s boyfriend. Teddy literally choked.

“Um, so, you don’t need to be giving me heart attacks right now,” Victoire informed him curtly. She took his hand in hers, and turned them around. “Should we go back?”

“Yeah,” Teddy replied, and he felt much lighter than before.

Previous Christmases were quite frankly just a bit too lonely, and this one had a lot more drama than he signed up for, but. But this one felt more like home than he’d ever had the pleasure of feeling, and that was all thanks to Victoire.

Maybe they’ll get more Christmases like this in the future. Feeling the warmth of her soft hands, that didn’t seem so impossible.


End file.
